Pathways to Work represents the single biggest ever change to how the State engages with, and provides services to, people who are unemployed. It is delivering on the Programme for Government commitment to set up a National Employment and Entitlements Service and involves a multi-annual programme of complex legislative, organisation, process, people, and work change running to the end of 2014. There are five strands to the Pathways approach relating to:
- Engagement with people who are unemployed;
- The provision of activation places and opportunities;
- Incentivising the take-up of opportunities;
- Working with employers; and
- Reforming institutions
We have made good progress on all strands. The Deputy will be aware of the institutional changes arising from the merger of the Community Welfare Service and FÁS employment services with my Department – both of which were transferred on time and within budget at the start of last year. Progress has been made on working with employers with the establishment of an Employer Engagement Unit within my Department. With regard to activation places and opportunities 2012 saw the very successful roll-out of JobBridge and TÚS while Budget 2013 provided for an additional 13,000 places on various employment schemes representing a 30% increase on existing provision. Jobseekers have a stronger incentive to take up these and other employment opportunities by virtue of changes to referral processes, payment arrangements in respect of casual work and the introduction of penalty rates of payment for non-engagement with activation initiatives.
The impact of the Pathways approach is most evident in the more frequent and more intensive manner of our engagement with jobseekers. For example 68,600 clients participated in a group engagement process last year, while over 40,000 clients have benefitted from such engagements already this year. Similarly the Department conducted 158,000 initial one-to-one guidance interviews with jobseekers last year. The target is to complete 185,000 initial interviews in 2013. Significantly under the Intreo model being rolled out across the country, the process of engagement starts immediately when a client registers for a Jobseekers payment and is informed by a personal profile captured in respect of each individual. In the past no such profiles were captured and clients had to wait at least three months before being invited to a Group Engagement. In addition decision times in respect of jobseeker claims are significantly reduced from an average of four weeks under the old method of operation to under a week, and in most cases to no more than 2/3 days, in Intreo offices.
The 12 twelve Intreo offices are now live and it is intended to convert 40 offices to full Intreo working by the end of this year and to complete the full roll-out to all 63 offices of the Department in 2014. It is to be noted that key elements of the Intreo model are being rolled-out in advance of the physical modification of offices. Personal profiling is already in place in all offices while individual progression planning and the accelerated integrated decision process will be operational in all offices by the end of this year.
With respect to plans for 2013 I have published a comprehensive set of performance targets, set out on a on a quarter by quarter basis, on the Department's website www.welfare.ie and will publish performance against these targets starting in July of this year.
