Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 May 2022
88. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Minister for Social Protection if she will outline measures taken to prevent abuse of the Work Placement Experience Programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24515/22]
View answerThe Work Placement Experience Programme (WPEP) is a key policy initiative under the Government's national employment services strategy, Pathways to Work 2021-2025. It is a funded work placement scheme to provide quality work experience to unemployed jobseekers to build their skills and experience.
The placements run for 6 months at 30 hours per week to include time spent on training. All participants are paid a minimum of €311 per week, plus any social welfare increases for qualified adults and children.
Participation on WPEP by jobseekers is entirely voluntary.
There are a range of checks in place prior to and during placements to make sure both participants and host organisations comply with the conditions of WPEP. My officials inform me these are working well.
All organisations who offer a WPEP placement are checked before the placement is placed on the Department’s recruitment website; jobsIreland.ie. The compliance process entails checks to ensure the host is fully compliant with all tax, health and safety and insurance obligations. In addition, there are checks to ensure that an organisation does not exceed the limit on the number of placements a host can offer based on their number of employees and has not made employees redundant from similar roles in the previous 6 months.
The individual placements on offer are checked to ensure the description reflect that these are work experience and training roles and do not require prior knowledge or experience by participants.
Once a placement has been agreed and in place, a number of checks are in place to ensure participants receive a quality work experience. Hosts are required to agree a training plan to ensure that 60 hours of training are in place including 20 hours that are accredited or sector recognised in addition to a monthly compliance checklist over the duration of the programme. There are monthly compliance notifications and checks to make sure all is in order.
In addition, an assigned Case Officer from Intreo liaises with the host and participant during the placement and undertakes two monitoring meetings, either in person or virtually, to ensure the terms and conditions of the programme are being fulfilled.
Since the programme was launched in July 2021 these arrangements have been working very well. I am not aware of any instances of non-compliance reported to date.
I trust this clarifies matters for the Deputy.
