Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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1041. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will provide a schedule of all client and or customer-facing and or orientated services that her Department provide via a contracted service provider; the contractor that provides the service; and the cost of same for the past five years to date in 2022. [1807/22]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I understand that the Deputy has clarified that the “customer facing/orientated services” referred to in the question relates to those involving direct “face-to-face” interactions with the customer in relation to the provision of my Department’s services.  My officials have identified three main areas which meet this criterion: externally contracted employment services, payment services, and translation and interpretation services.  

1.Externally Contracted Employment Services 

The Department contracts external employment services through four programmes: JobPath, Local Employment Services (LES), EmployAbility and Job Clubs.  Externally contracted provision supports the Department with additional capacity and access to specialised skills to meet the requirements of jobseekers.  My Department has committed in a number of policy documents (e.g. Make Work Pay for People with Disabilities, Roadmap for Social Inclusion, and Pathways to Work) to extend employment support services to a wider range of cohorts including people with disabilities, lone parents and qualified adults.  It is important that the Department maintains sufficient jobseeker support capacity to meet current and future needs in order to be able to provide a high-quality service to these customers and respond effectively and quickly to rises in unemployment.

The table below shows the expenditure on these services for the relevant period. The Deputy will be aware that payments to individual contractors is commercially sensitive information and to publish would place the State at a disadvantage both in terms of the contracts currently in place and in any future procurement that may be undertaken.  Therefore, the expenditure on each programme per year has been provided:

*Year-to-date November 2021. No expenditure yet recorded for 2022. 

2.Payment Services 

My Department’s payment services are provided by Danske Bank and An Post. Cash payments collected in post offices entail direct customer ‘face-to-face’ transactions.  An Post have been paid the following annual agency fees for the provision of these cash services:  

3.Interpretation & Translation Services 

My Department provides face-to-face services with Irish Sign Language interpreters and other languages as necessary. Over the period in question, contracts were issued to the following providers for services: 

- Unique Voice Translation & Interpreting 

- Accord Translations  

- Word Perfect Translation Services Ltd  

- SLIS  

- Bridge Interpretation  

Details of annual expenditure on services is set out in the table below Please note that these figures will include some non face-to-face translation, e.g., translation of some of the Department's forms into Polish and other languages used by our customers:  

*Note: From March 2020 and throughout 2021, limited face-to-face language interpretation took place due to restrictions because of the Covid-19 public health crisis.  My Department provided phone and video interpretation services in their place during this time.  

Finally, my Department operates an extensive network of Social Welfare Branch Offices which utilise contracts for the management and operation of the office. However, Branch Offices are fully integrated with the Department’s systems and work processes and are effectively presented as an office of the Department, distinguished only by the employment status of the Branch Manager.  On that basis, Branch Offices are not directly comparable with service providers who operate at arm’s length from the Department and who clearly adopt a separate public identity.