Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 9 Feb 2000

Vol. 514 No. 1

Written Answers. - Local Employment Service.

Jan O'Sullivan

Question:

79 Ms O'Sullivan asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if any assessment of the effectiveness of the local employment scheme has been carried out; if the information from any such assessment will be put into the public domain; if changes in the scheme are contemplated; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3511/00]

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Ms Harney)

There have been two assessments of the effectiveness of the local employment service conducted in recent years – a Forfás evaluation entitled initial review of the Local Employment Service, January 1997, and a Eustace Clarke evaluation entitled Evaluation of the Local Employment Service, June 1998. Aspects relating to the functioning and organisation of the Employment Service – both the FÁS and LES components – were also addressed in the 1996 White Paper on Human Resource Development, the 1998 OECD examination of the public employment service in Ireland, in a statement in December 1998 from the National Competitiveness Council on Skills Needs, and in the ESRI's Report on National Investment Priorities for the period 2000-2006, March 1999. All of these evaluations and reports are available in the public domain. A key and consistent issue raised in almost all of these reports is the need to integrate the FÁS employment service and LES as a single integrated body.

The Government decision of 29 March 1999 which followed a lengthy and wide ranging consultation process, decided to implement new operational arrangements for the management, development and delivery of the national employment service function. Under these new arrangements the local employment service – LES – is to be assimilated under FÁS, as a discrete component of a more integrated, dual-stranded national employment service, the other component being the existing FÁS employment service. An employment service advisory committee has been established within FÁS which will have responsibility for advising the FÁS board on the operation and development of all components of the national employment service function, including the LES. Membership of the advisory committee is to comprise the following representatives drawn from the main FÁS board: one Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, one Department of Finance, one Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs, one Department of Education and Science, one IBEC, one ICTU, one Worker Director and one FÁS executive representative; together with a representative each from INOU, PLANET, the representative body of the partnerships, ADM and the LES co-ordinators. Practical operational arrangements to assimilate the LES into FÁS will shortly be put in train.