Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 19 February 2019
46. Deputy Willie O'Dea asked the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection her plans for community employment schemes and the local employment services; the efforts she will make to safeguard same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8052/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraThere are two aspects to this question. The first part is that the Minister recently announced a review of the community employment scheme. I would like an update on the review. Second, has the Minister read the Indecon report? Is she aware of its recommendations on the local employment service, LES, and has she taken any decision on the matter yet?
With some 900 schemes, community employment is the largest employment programme administered by my Department. It aims to enhance employability and mobility by providing work experience and training opportunities for unemployed persons within their communities. They do this superbly. Community employment also helps long-term unemployed persons to re-enter the active workforce by breaking their long-term experiences of unemployment through a return to work routine.
Deputies on all sides of the House are fully aware of the positive benefits derived from community employment schemes by the individuals, the host companies and communities. Communities benefit from the skills and talents of participants, while participants are provided with the opportunity to improve existing skills, or develop new ones, while performing valuable work in local communities. Many community employment schemes provide vital community services across the country, all of which are well embedded in the communities. I know that we certainly could not do without some of these services in County Meath, but that is true and reflective of all the counties we represent.
I am fully committed to the future of the programme and will continue to support and improve it for the benefit of the people who participate in it and having regard to the valuable contribution it makes to local communities. In that regard, the Government has agreed to my request to establish an interdepartmental group to explore the most appropriate organisational arrangements, including which Departments should host sections of the community employment programme, especially social inclusion schemes. Deputies may be aware that following the review of the community employment scheme in 2015, a decision was taken to adopt a two-strand approach to all community employment placements which were categorised as either a training and activation strand or a social inclusion strand. It is my strong view that local services supported by these social inclusion placements should be safeguarded. The scheme will continue to be subject to continuous improvement and reviewed on a regular basis.
The Department values very highly the local services provided by bodies such as the LES and will continue to depend on local service providers to supplement and complement direct service provision into the future. It is, however, a legal requirement that the services be procured in an open process and that appropriate governance arrangements be entered into. Accordingly, my Department commissioned Indecon to complete an independent, evidence–based evaluation of the effectiveness, efficiency and governance of the local employment service and jobs clubs. The report was published in January and I have read it. It will inform the Department's and my decisions on the future activations and partnerships we require.
I am incredibly committed to the people involved because they are incredibly committed to unemployed persons. They provide valuable services and we will continue to support them.
Additional information not given on the floor of the House
It will help to inform both the Department and the LES of how to ensure compliance with legal procurement requirements. My Department and I have been engaging with key stakeholders throughout the process and will, of course, continue to do so. Looking to the future of employment services generally, one of the factors to be taken into account is the reduction in the live register. This creates an opportunity to consider how best to encourage and support other groups into employment such as inactive persons who are not currently seeking work and people with disabilities. I consider that services such as the LES are well positioned to offer such a service. My Department will continue to consult the relevant stakeholders to ensure any future contracted public employment service will give the best possible service to those who wish to return to the labour market.
I am glad that the Minister is committed because my information is that the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection is directing people away from community employment schemes to keep Turas Nua and Seetec fed. It is to keep that monster fed. When does the Minister expect to be in a position to make a decision on the future of community employment schemes? Does she intend to retain responsibility for the schemes within her Department? There is a suggestion it may move to another Department.
The Indecon report contains a recommendation that active consideration be given to having an open, public, competitive procurement model for future provision of services, that is, the services being provided by the LES. Is the Minister aware that, as a State body, the LES would not be able to compete in such a procurement process? It would not be in a position to compete if the service was opened up to private tender in this way. That would directly open the door to the privatisation of the service. Unfortunately, I do not have time to reiterate my views in that regard which I delivered to the Minister last week during Private Members' business. Will she give an assurance to the people who are being well served by the LES and the dedicated staff within it that this is one of the recommendations she will not be accepting?
I shall break my reply into two based on what the Deputy asked. The interdepartmental group is going to have its first meeting next week. Ms Simonetta Ryan has agreed to chair the group and we will have a number of meetings in the next few weeks. I will have recommendations arising from the meetings and the consultation with host CE companies. I will bring a memo to the Cabinet before the end of May.
I will explain the route I am taking. After the review in 2015 in which we categorised CE placements as training and activation and social inclusion, we continued to govern them with exactly the same rules we used for activation. How, in God's name, can we genuinely support a person in sheltered or supported employment if he or she is being governed by the same rules as those used in training somebody to gain work experience or undergoing a course for one year, which are to get people off the live register and into employment? That just does not work. We need two sets of rules in that regard.
We also need to look at where the rural social scheme sits. We need to look at Tús in that context. This will be done in the interdepartmental review. I cannot tell the Deputy the outcome of the deliberations on the Indecon report, but I can tell him what I told the Irish Local Development Network at its AGM in December. They are an integral part of the delivery of services in the State and have been for years and will be for years into the future.
If that is the case and it is the Minister's intention that the LES should continue for years into the future and knowing as I do that the LES would not be able to compete properly or not at all if it was opened up to private tender, will she confirm this and give us that reassurance in order that there will not be any question about the work being tendered for privately? Will she also answer my other question? Is it her intention or objective to retain responsibility for community employment schemes within her Department, rather than have it transferred to another Department now that the social aspect is to be the focus from here on?
I will answer the Deputy's last question first. I do not know what the outcome of the interdepartmental review will be. It has not yet started. I know what I want-----
Tell us what it is.
-----but I am doing it interdepartmentally because it is not just up to me to make the decisions.
Would the Minister prefer to retain responsibility in her Department?
I would prefer to have two sets of rules. I do not mind who owns the schemes or who funds them, but I do mind that it is not fair on people in communities who need sheltered employment and additional supports to be governed by the same rules as those we use for job activation schemes. It is just not fair and not feasible and I do not think I can stand over it. Whether we keep responsibility for the schemes and drugs rehabilitation schemes in the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, which would be fine by us, or whether it moves naturally perhaps to the Department of Health, while responsibility for the RSS would perhaps move to the Department of Rural and Community Development will be discussed with the host CE companies and the interdepartmental group which will come up with a list of recommendations that best suits the future of the schemes to support them in the way they should be supported. It should be inclusive and not try to activate people from community employment schemes who cannot be activated for one or two years. The Deputy is aware that Ministers spend their weeks answering community employment scheme requests for persons to be allowed to stay on it for extra years. There are reasons people want to stay on it for the extra years and I believe we should have different rules governing the different strands.
I thank the Minister.
I will be very quick. I have no choice but to provide for public procurement of Government services. The same will apply to Deputy when he sits here. I have no choice but to do it. I have told our ILDN partners that we will support them in that process and we will.
We have to have some control-----
They have a future with the activation services in the State. I have assured them in that regard.
We have made very little progress.
I am sorry, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
