Seán Fleming
Question:83. Deputy Sean Fleming asked the Minister for Social Protection the progress that she has made in the implementation of the pathways to work initiative; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44406/12]
View answerTuesday, 16 October 2012
Questions (83)
Written answers
As the Deputy will be aware, I launched the first INTREO office of the new employment and entitlements service of the Department, with An Taoiseach on Monday in Sligo. INTREO is the integrated employment activation and supports service model that this Government promised to deliver in the Programme for Government and in ‘Pathways to Work’. INTREO is the name for the new service model of the Department integrating the employment services and community programmes formerly of FÁS, and the Community Welfare Services (CWS) formerly of the HSE and the income support services provided by the Department itself.
The integration of functions and the transformation of the way the Department delivers its services were always envisaged as a multi-annual and iterative process of transformation. The launch of INTREO in Sligo on Monday is a key milestone in that transformation process.
Building upon the skills and processes in the enlarged Department, a new activation concept, the one-stop-shop has been developed and has been rolled out in four pilot offices, Sligo, King’s Inns Parnell Street, Dublin, Arklow and Tallaght.
Other offices in Ballymun, Kilkenny, Buncrana, Coolock, Finglas and Dundalk will go live before the end of the year. INTREO will be then be rolled out to all the Department’s offices nationwide by the end of 2014, in a programme that is being carefully managed in a live operating environment.
INTREO’s one-stop-shop offices includes a single integrated decision-making team that integrates and streamlines the processes formerly undertaken by the different agencies now amalgamated into the Department. Already clients are seeing the benefits of the integrated decisions process in terms of shorter decision times and in the reduced recourse to supplementary payments in offices where integrated decisions are in operation.
On being awarded a claim, the client will also be asked to sign a ‘social contract’ with the Department. The client acknowledges their responsibility to work to secure employment at the earliest possible opportunity, on the understanding that failure to adhere to those undertakings may result in the reduction or withdrawal of income support payments.
The most significant demands of the Pathways approach are i) profiles of clients to inform the approach taken to activation; ii) Early engagement with clients through group engagement sessions; iii) One to one interviews with case managers.
Progress under each of these headings is as follows (a) the Profiling of all new claimants has been operating in the four pilot one-stop shop locations and is now also operating in all other DSP offices. The roll-out programme has been completed ahead of the December 2012 target; (b) The Department targeted to involve 30,000 clients in group engagements with 20,500 by the end of August. In fact, more than 42,000 clients had been involved in group engagements by that time; (c) The Department committed to holding 90,000 initial one-to-one guidance interviews with clients by the end of August 2012 but almost 110,000 had been held by that date. That figure doesn’t include the 98,000 follow-up meetings held by the end of August.
INTREO is also refocusing the Department’s relationship with employers.
The level of contact with employers at national and local level is already increasing. For example Springboard Recruitment fairs were held in conjunction with HEA in Dublin, Galway and Cork during September. I am working on a further series of seven employer briefings over the next two months starting in Limerick on Friday.
The launch of INTREO marks a watershed in the way the Department responds to the needs of today’s Ireland. INTREO puts the flesh on the Government’s policy initiatives to put Ireland back to work.