Seán Sherlock
Question:18. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Social Protection the status of her Department's engagement with private multinational companies tendering for local employment services. [5351/22]
View answerThursday, 3 February 2022
Questions (18)
Written answers
The legal advice from the Chief State Solicitor’s Office and the Attorney General was unequivocal that there needs to be competitive procurement for future public employment services. In addition, my Department is responsible for ensuring good governance of employment service provision, which requires greater oversight and enhanced visibility of service provision.I can say that, as with every open competitive procurement, it is open to any entity to submit a tender. Of course any tender submitted must meet certain qualifying criteria laid out in the tender documents. Provided it does so it will then be considered on its own merits, in line with procurement law. This is how legal procurement works. I would emphasise that under the procurement process for Local Area Employment Services now underway, 80% of the award criteria marks are related to the quality of the service, its community linkages, and its impact on social value.The experience from Phase 1 shows that community and voluntary groups can and did succeed. I am therefore confident that community and voluntary based providers who work collaboratively and submit high quality bids will be in a strong competitive position to secure a contract. The publicity relating to the possibility of new market entrants shouldn't distract from the ability of existing service providers to submit high-quality bids for the new service, particularly as my Department has worked hard to take on board feedback from phase 1 of the process. As part of this feedback process, and prior to issuing the request for tender, the Department met with existing service providers and representative bodies and also took a number of brief introductory video call with interested parties at their request. The purpose of these was to outline the proposed tender process and timelines.I am sure that the quality-first approach which is now part of the phase 2 tender will ensure that, as we expand employment services throughout the State, we retain a focus on providing the best possible service to the long-term unemployed.