Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 July 2012
353 Deputy Paudie Coffey asked the Minister for Social Protection the position regarding the progress in implementing the Pathways to Work initiative that was announced by Government earlier this year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36060/12]
View answerThe Pathways to Work policy is designed to support people currently on the live register to access jobs available in the market place. It is focused on providing for more regular and on-going engagement with the unemployed, greater targeting of activation places and opportunities; incentivising the take up of opportunities, incentivising employer to provide more jobs for people who are unemployed and reforming institutions to deliver better services to the unemployed.
A key element of the Government's Pathways to Work Strategy is the establishment of the new National Employment and Entitlements Service. The establishment of the NEES is currently underway integrating employment and benefit payment services within the Department.
The first step in establishing the NEES was integrating staff from FÁS, the Community Welfare Service and the Department. This integration, which involved the transfer of over 1700 staff was completed on schedule in January of this year. It facilitates the delivery of a ‘one-stop-shop' service to clients and greatly simplifies the process whereby clients previously had to apply to three separate organisations for welfare and employment services.
The ‘one-stop-shop' service is currently being piloted in four of the Department's offices and will be extended to a further ten offices by the year end. As part of this service, clients can receive a single decision on their welfare entitlements, are assessed to determine their employment services requirements and, following assessment, attend a group interview with subsequent one to one interviews. Clients who do not engage with the process are placed on a penalty rate of payment.
Pathways to Work sets out a detailed service model which outlines the approach to be taken with each client type. These include measures such as profiling, group engagement and the application of penalty rates. In total the Department has now profiled 15,000 claimants and initial results indicate that the profiling approach is robust. In 2012 to date approximately 30,700 people have had the benefit of group engagements and attendance rates at subsequent one to one interviews have improved significantly. In addition jobseekers who refuse to attend a group engagement are now subject to a penalty rate of payments.
In order to progress the Pathways to Work policies and to ensure that there is a cross-cutting approach to meeting the key targets the following structures are in now place: an Interdepartmental Programme Board has been established including senior officials from the Department of the Taoiseach, Department of Education and Skills, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation and Expert Group on Future Skills Needs.
Measures to deliver on the programme of activity outlined in Pathways to work are continually being developed and implemented as it represents a multi annual and ambitious programme of work to assist people re-enter the workforce.
