Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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1180. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on the roll-out of the State’s job matching service, jobsIreland.ie; the reason the launch date was delayed due to technical issues in 2016 forcing employers to re register for the service; the number of complaints received to date about the site; the costs associated with setting up and maintaining the website; and her plans to review the tender process relating to the website [34714/17]

Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Jobsireland.ie is a web service that enables employers to post job opportunities and jobseekers to search and apply for these opportunities online.

Employers are vital to the continuing recovery of the Irish economy and they are important customers of my Department. Private sector companies offer online vacancy services, but at a cost. My Department’s service is fee-free and supports employers to find suitable candidates across a wide range of industry sectors. Unlike commercial services, JobsIreland is integrated with the European-wide EURES service and is also used to support public employment schemes, such as Community Employment.

The new JobsIreland also represents a key step in the ongoing development of the State’s Intreo employment service. The service greatly improves the ability of employers and jobseekers to offer and find employment using the latest technology in a cost effective manner. It is also being integrated with the Department’s Intreo service and will be of benefit to case workers as they support jobseekers in their efforts to find employment. A JobsIreland service has been available since the 1990s and was originally provided on a website operated by FÁS. When my Department took over responsibility for the public employment service it was clear that the website did not provide the range of functionality offered by public employment services in other European countries.

For example, while the old website enabled jobseekers to search for job opportunities based on job type, location and salary, employers could not search for suitable jobseekers - they had to rely on candidates finding and applying for the jobs that they were offering from among the many thousands hosted on the website. In effect, it operated as an online ‘notice board’ rather than an online recruitment tool. In addition, the site itself operated on old technology which was obsolescent.

Accordingly the Department decided to tender for the provision of a new multi-functional service. Tendering procedures were fully compliant with Public Procurement Guidelines. Following an open procurement process via etenders and OJEU, conducted in compliance with public procurement guidelines, the Department selected an Irish vendor to design, build and operate the service. The contract was awarded on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender submitted in response to the requirements set out in the Request for Tender, for a fee of €3.36m to be paid over an initial period of five and a half years to the end of 2021 with an option to extend the contract at the end of this period at a reduced rate. My Department is satisfied that it represented the best value for money and entered into a contract with BDO on the 18th September 2015.

The new service enables employers and jobseekers to search for each other using competencies and skillsets as well as the traditional job type classifications. It also operates in the background to automatically match candidate CVs to job specifications posted by employers and notify both the candidates and the employers when a match is found. Employers and candidates can communicate with each other using system messaging.

It was intended that the first phase of the enhanced JobsIreland service would be introduced on 18th July 2016. As preparation for the switchover, the old service had to be suspended - to facilitate, among other things, the migration of data to the new system. During this time some user access and system performance issues were identified and it was considered prudent to undertake remedial work so as to mitigate the risk of problems appearing in the live environment. The start date for the new service was therefore deferred to 28th July 2016.

Regrettably, this meant that the service was offline for a short period. During that time, employers who wished to post job advertisements were asked to contact staff in the National Contact Centre, who took details from them to facilitate publication as soon as the new service went live.

Some employers didn’t understand why they had to re-register as users on the new site when they were already registered on the old site. Re-registration on the new site was necessary to ensure that an employer could avail of the full service offered by the website. Previously the old system captured very ‘light’ employer details (essentially name and address). Additional information is required in order to validate jobs and employers as real jobs/employers and to match employers with potential candidates, including, for example, industry sector, Company Registration Office and VAT registration numbers. This also provided the opportunity to refresh the employer register and eliminate duplicate entries that have built up over the past twenty years. Similarly job details and skill/competency requirements have to be specified in greater detail if job and candidate matching is to be effective.

My Department worked to minimise the impact of the registration process. In cases where an employer had a live vacancy advertised on the old system, officials contacted them and made arrangements to have them registered in order for that vacancy to transfer and be successfully associated with the new, more complete entry.

The service is being implemented on phased basis which means that there has been some service disruption - implementation of a complex new website in a live environment will inevitably lead to some service disruption. The phased implementation is designed to enable new features to be added while minimising disruption.

Notwithstanding that the level of disruption experienced during the implementation of the new service was greater than anticipated, particularly during the July – November period of 2016, the Department is satisfied that the system is now operating satisfactorily and is providing a much broader and relevant set of functionality to users than was available on the old system. The improved performance is reflected in the fact that there are now over 10,000 jobs advertised on the site – this is the highest level recorded in recent years.

The price and payment schedule for the service has been adjusted to reflect the initial difficulties experienced and the vendor has agreed to extend the service period to compensate for the delays that resulted from these service issues.

My Department has a National Contact Centre which provides employers and jobseekers who use the JobsIreland website with information, advice and support. Anyone needing assistance can contact the Centre by email at jobsireland@welfare.ie or by phone on 1890 800 024 (between 9.00am and 5.00pm Monday to Friday).

At the time of the site launch in Summer 2016, many customers experienced difficulty in accessing the service; the level of customer enquiries and complaints increased significantly in August 2016 and remained high for the rest of the year, averaging 200 per week. Additional staff was assigned to manage this level of enquiry and to support users in accessing the JobsIreland service. From December 2016 the number of customer enquiries, including complaints, has reduced significantly and has averaged 20 per week for the year to date. This level of query is not considered excessive for a service that is hosting 10,000 job vacancies. There have been 8 official complaints.