Vol. 442 No. 2
5 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the plans, if any, he has for an overall review of schemes for the long term unemployed in view of the findings of a report prepared for the National Economic and Social Forum which showed that two-thirds of participants failed to secure employment at the end of their term of such schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The various programmes and schemes, operated by FÁS under the auspices of my Department, are subject to onging review and adaptation with a view to improving their effectiveness. For example, the main programmes for the long term unemployed, namely the social employment scheme and the community employment development programme, have been reviewed over the last number of months and together with Teamwork have been replaced by Community Employment.
The new programme will build on the strengths and experience of the earlier programmes. One of the criticisms directed at the social employment scheme was the lack of training and this has been taken on board under community employment which will provide a development module for all participants and which will be phased in over the next 12 months. This module will focus on the development of personal/employment skills, technical skills relating to project work and support for own time development. I am confident that developments of this nature together with the work experience gained through participation on the programme should improve the chances for participants of obtaining employment when opportunities become available. However, I am aware that even when employment opportunities are available the long term unemployed experience particular difficulty in obtaining employment. We must seek to break down prejudices of this nature by persuading employers to examine their recruitment and selection practices to remove any vestige of bias against the long term unemployed and in particular to look upon participation in community employment and other FÁS programmes as practical evidence of the desire and fitness of unemployed people for work.
Will the Minister comment specifically on the report prepared by consultants for the National Economic and Social Forum? Is he aware that that report concluded that 66 per cent or two thirds of those participating in schemes were back on the dole after one year? Does the Minister accept that that is an indictment of what the forum report described as poor quality schemes, that in effect too many of these schemes are going nowhere and are merely recycling human beings back on the dole? I accept there is some merit in the schemes but the fact that they are not facilitating people to re-enter the workforce is their major weakness.
I share many of the concerns expressed by the Deputy but I disagree fundamentally with both the analysis and the conclusions of the WRC report. The substance of that report was published in a national newspaper recently. There was a substantial riposte from FÁS to many of the conclusions, which were based on very simplistic arithmetic. I hope the National Economic and Social Forum, for whom the report was commissioned will invite representatives of FÁS to enter into dialogue on their analysis, in contrast to the WRC analysis, of the value for money criteria and the statistics used to arrive at conclusions.
I was responsible for introducing the social employment scheme. That scheme was designed to provide employment and work experience for a year. It did not attempt to hold out prospects of a progression from participation in that scheme to employment. The rate of people who went on to find employment, not necessarily immediately, is 30 per cent or 33 per cent but it varies depending on the nature of the work.
With the benefit of ten years operational experience we recognise that the lack of training and guidance is a deficiency. For that reason a training component, along the lines referred to, has been introduced. It would be misleading to say this will automatically guarantee full time employment for those who participate in it. It will not, but I hope it will help individuals to develop and improve their employment prospects and, in a statistical sense that it will improve the rate of entry into the active labour market. These programmes are not alternatives to full time employment. They have never been promoted, nor are they considered as such; they are simply a way of ensuring that the long term unemployed are given a path back to the prospect of sustained employment. Part of that path includes a component designed to promote personal development and training and some degree of progression which we have structured into the new programme.
I accept what the Minister says about the training factor and so on. Does he not accept that our failure rate — two out of three people finding themselves back in a cul-de-sac of despair and hopelessness — is a long way from a guarantee and is a marked indictment of the schemes? The Minister referred to the simplistic calculations of some of the conclusions of that report. I did not adduce those calculations. I accept that you cannot divide the allocation by the number of successful applicants and say that it cost that much to create a job. I did not adduce that. Does the Minister agree that the major defect of the scheme is that there is very little real training as most schemes provide basic routine exercises without an element of self development? Is he aware that many of those involved in putting the CEDP in place believe that the provision for the training component is inadequate and that at the end of the day many of the participants will not go on to develop the skills that might make them more marketable?
With due respects to the Deputy, he is falling into the false intellectual trap set by the consultants when they measured the success of schemes by the subsequent participation of trainees in the labour market. If one starts with that analysis as the criteria of success inevitably one arrives at the results the consultants got. The matter was highlighted in the media but, I hasten to add, not by the Deputy.
The schemes were evaluated in the first instance by the contribution they made to the stock of wealth in local communities. Members will be well aware of the marvellous work that has been done for communities using community resources. That does not figure in the consultants' study. Many individuals, having had the opportunity to participate in work, in some cases having been unemployed for three years or more, have benefited and in some cases, but not in the number required, have succeeded in finding work of a satisfactory kind.
I agree with the Deputy that what is lacking in SES and to a lesser extent in the CEDP is a good and significant training element. We are in the process of developing the training element in the community employment scheme. I would not for one moment say we have the design of the training element right. We will monitor its effectiveness throughout the year and, in particular, we will see if it provides what the European Commission, the Government and the Irish National Organisation for the Unemployed want, a path of progression to enable people at the end of a year or two to identify what they want to do. In some cases that may involve participating in a further full-time course which will lead to enhanced employment prospects. A training module is being designed. This morning in my constituency I launched a training manual for such participants. It is recognised by everybody that we are developing. We are among the most advanced in the European Union in this area of third sector employment.
