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€700 Million a year is apparently being wasted.

Biggins

According to an internal government report (that I'm guessing the public was not meant to hear about) €700 Million a year is apparently being wasted via FAS and community employment (CE) schemes.

A write-up in The (England) Times yesterday goes into detail about the internal report.
(For those with a Times Account, here: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/News/article868289.ece)

Part of the write-up mentioned that the state is wasting more than €700m a year on job-creation programmes which have failed to bring the unemployed back into the workforce.

The internal government report has found that the core strategy employed by Fas, the state training agency, of interviewing unemployed people and referring them for training was not effective in getting them off the dole. The report also raised questions about the €360m-a-year community employment (CE) scheme.

Whats the betting this report was not meant to reach the public domain?
I personally suspect that "Solas" (which is supposed to be replacing FAS at some stage), will just end up being another "get the numbers off the live register" government PR trick.
As it was with ANCO, then Manpower, then FAS - next up "Solas".

The future does not bode well for these schemes!

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My name is URL

mickydoomsux wrote: »

It's giving people useless/worthless skills is the problem. Or it isn't training them to a level that employers require.

Just because you get a bit of paper doesn't mean you get a job. If the industry you are training up in doesn't exist any more then the entire organisation is a collosal waste of time.

What should they be doing instead?

It's better to give somebody the opportunity to upskill, even if employment levels in the field they choose is static.

'giving people useless/worthless skills' is a bit of an oxymoron.. especially when talking about a large proportion of the unskilled workforce.

K-9

TheZohan wrote: »

I wonder how many years it will be before there are a few tribunals over NAMA. Certainly couldn't trust the government not to make a balls of it or not to have their aul chums make a few quid on it.

NAMA themselves seem pretty sharp and serious about their remit. The idea is a totally different thing.

mickydoomsux

My name is URL wrote: »

What should they be doing instead?

It's better to give somebody the opportunity to upskill, even if employment levels in the field they choose is static.

'giving people useless/worthless skills' is a bit of an oxymoron.. especially when talking about a large proportion of the unskilled workforce.

Have you actually had a look through their list of courses?

Still a lot of stuff related to construction, a lot of "beauty therapy" stuff which is worthless because people don't pay €80 to have their hair done every 2 weeks anymore so hairdresser are shutting down, some ECDL type stuff that you could learn yourself in a couple of hours and some basic "how to be a shop assistant" stuff. It laudable that people are seeking retraining but i have to wonder if potential employers take FAS qualifications seriously at this stage.

I have a friend who has done a couple of courses with them and he said they are utterly worthless.

Honestly, the entire thing should be scrapped and it should be made easier for people to access proper third-level education by using the money saved to fund some kind of grant system. Having an entire organisation running at a cost of hundreds of millions to poorly train people to do jobs in depressed industries doesn't make any sense.

whatsamsn

My name is URL wrote: »

What should they be doing instead?

It's better to give somebody the opportunity to upskill, even if employment levels in the field they choose is static.

'giving people useless/worthless skills' is a bit of an oxymoron.. especially when talking about a large proportion of the unskilled workforce.

Was just looking at their courses again...

- Manual Metal Arc Welding course. 10 weeks. Part time.
After which, as they state, "enable participants to carry out Basic Arc Welding" - not really a skill. An introduction. Aka, might as well say DIY course.

- Hairdressing. 5 weeks. Part time.
Again, only the basics. If a woman (even guy :P) wanted to enter this field. This course wont cut it. Only an introduction, again, DIY esque.

Ray Palmer

There are tons of FAS courses of all different levels. There are many that go way beyond 10 weeks. They get people jobs too. The do a particularly good graphics course which is about a year long and they have close to 100% hire rate out of it. There are a lot of skills people think everybody has but many don't such as basic computing.

The main waste I suspect the article is about is the CE schemes which AFAIK aren't run by FAS but they do place people on the scheme. I can't see the article so it should be posted up. Anyway the CE scheme is a completely corrupted solution. The idea was to help people back to work. What happened was it was a way to get a double payment. Community inititives then took more people on than they needed and never managed them right.

What many people don't understand there is a hell of lot of people out there without many basic skills such as reading and writing. Then you have the people who aren't in any way computer literate. Expecting them to learn programing on-line is a little bit over the top. Get this they may not even own a computer nor have an internet connection.

There are definitely a lot of people who don't have any idea how some sections of the population live.

Anybody who thinks graduating from college makes you smart also should realise it doesn't. Most graduates are pretty much disliked when they start new as they are arrogant about what they know while college has thought them pretty much no useful skills. You start at entry level becasue that is all you know and generally they don't last longer than 18 months. Make them work long hours and they are cheap. IT actually depends on fresh graduate that it chews up and throws out.

d9oiu2wk07blr5

The article was about €700 that is being wasted on projects like Community Employment, Back to Education and Youthreach and the fact that they do not enable people to find employment. It also backs up an earlier Forfas report which also criticised programmes like Community Employment and JI for not helping people to get a job. In fact the Forfas report found that only 46% of CE participants move onto full-time paid employment after completing their placement whereas the majority go back to claiming welfare after finishing this scheme. There was also an internal report from the Department of Public Expenditure which also found that CE, after schools clubs, drug rehabilitation projects and community networks/projects which again are mainly funded by the taxpayer are completely useless as they do not help people to get a job.

The other question that must be asked is why there hasn't there been any evaluation of the WPP to see whether that initiative met its objectives of enabling people to find full-time paid work. More to the point, why wasn't WPP evaluated before coming up with its latest spin-off Jobsbridge....and when will we see Jobsbridge being evaluated to see how many of the participating employers make the transition to providing full-time paid employment after completing their 6 or nine month offer of an internship, or how many of the participants secure full-time paid work after completing their six or nine month placement.

Given these facts, the question has to be asked why is the Government and Taxpayer continuing to fund projects that are not meeting the objectives or project outcomes? These

Ray Palmer

Serenity Eager Piranha wrote: »

Given these facts, the question has to be asked why is the Government and Taxpayer continuing to fund projects that are not meeting the objectives or project outcomes? These

Not everything is quantifiable. While the schemes have one goal to get people employment the CE programs have their own goals. It could actually be keeping people out of prison and consider it cost over €50k to have somebody in prison maybe it isn't a waste of money.

I have met some people who simply aren't going to get employment yet they do such schemes. They are truely good for them and I am not exagerating when I say they have saved their lives.

The way the accounting is done makes it sound a particular way but some of these CE schems are actually doing something useful such as meals on wheels. Take it away from the CE and it still needs to be provided.

d9oiu2wk07blr5

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Not everything is quantifiable. While the schemes have one goal to get people employment the CE programs have their own goals. It could actually be keeping people out of prison and consider it cost over €50k to have somebody in prison maybe it isn't a waste of money.

I have met some people who simply aren't going to get employment yet they do such schemes. They are truely good for them and I am not exagerating when I say they have saved their lives.

The way the accounting is done makes it sound a particular way but some of these CE schems are actually doing something useful such as meals on wheels. Take it away from the CE and it still needs to be provided.

CE is a labour activation measure that aims to provide people with the experience of work and skills needed to secure full-time paid work. It is not meeting that objective. I have worked in this area and after completing this scheme many of the people just headed back to claim DA, JA or OFP. None of them in the project that I was involved in actually made that transition. In fact I was quiet surprised that none of them even went on training courses which raised very serious issues about the CE supervisor and those in FAS.

I understand that many of these projects provide vital services, essentially they are filling the gaps in services that are not provided or met by the State. However, meals on wheels and other community based projects can be run by unpaid volunteers. The VEC together with the DOJ also runs and funds very good educational programmes for ex-offenders.

Unfortunately, the other problem with many of these community projects is that they have become 100% reliant on State funding....very few of them secure match funding for their day to day operations. But getting back to the point CE doesn't work - so it does need to be looked at in terms of whether the State should continue funding it.

AeoNGriM

Biggins wrote: »

According to an internal government report (that I'm guessing the public was not meant to hear about) €700 Million a year is apparently being wasted via FAS and community employment (CE) schemes.

A write-up in The (England) Times yesterday goes into detail about the internal report.
(For those with a Times Account, here: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/ireland/News/article868289.ece)

Part of the write-up mentioned that the state is wasting more than €700m a year on job-creation programmes which have failed to bring the unemployed back into the workforce.

The internal government report has found that the core strategy employed by Fas, the state training agency, of interviewing unemployed people and referring them for training was not effective in getting them off the dole. The report also raised questions about the €360m-a-year community employment (CE) scheme.

Whats the betting this report was not meant to reach the public domain?
I personally suspect that "Solas" (which is supposed to be replacing FAS at some stage), will just end up being another "get the numbers off the live register" government PR trick.
As it was with ANCO, then Manpower, then FAS - next up "Solas".

The future does not bode well for these schemes!

Have to say, even though I am aware that there are a lot that fail to obtain employment after FAS courses, I personally have completed 2 FAS courses, obtaining pretty decent quals (City&Guilds in 2D&3D CAD, Level 6 Fetac in IT Support, CompTIA A+ & Network+) and was able to find work fairly rapidly with said quals.

Course, the caveat here is that I actually bothered my bollix to attend the courses, learn the material, study for exams and put effort into job hunting. I realise that a lot of people don't bother, and just use FAS courses to keep their dole etc and that makes me dissappoint.

Serial FASsers should be told to fook off, the fat should be trimmed from the courses to enable/ensure the right people are getting their quals, but I think they do help a lot of people to reskill and get back to work so they should be kept.

tonsiltickler

Fas should be disbanded and replaced with a foreign language school. there are so many jobs requiring other languages now. It would also make it easier for people to emigrate to places other than Oz and Canada.

Why don't they put more of this money into 3rd level places?

walshe.matthew

I have been doing a FAS Office Adminastrator Course Fetac Level 5 and I have to say it is extremley good! also I have recently found out that there is a very good chance I will be starting in DIT next year all because of this course and its helpful instructor. Its provided me with huge amounts of skills with all areas the office suite and I think I would be very employable at the end if I chhose to go that route.

This time last year I had not a pot 2 piss and that wasn't because I was lazy and didnt want to get work.

This is comming from a person who used to think Fas and most other gov. orginisations simular to Fas were frankly a bunch of **** ****.

starlit

I cannot understand why they would want to get rid of CE schemes all together in certain parts of the country in particular rural towns. Its ridiculous that the government has any kind of intention of scrapping it. Reduce the wage on it if its that much of a bother in the budget but seriously it will affect a lot of people just getting out of the house for a days work and a days pay even if it only a few days and a few hours of work a week, its an excuse to get out of the bed at least and get up in the morning! Why take a days work away from them like that is beyond me!

Its a better way to gain employment and experience. A better way of getting your foot back in the door in the labour force and get a permanent job after than a job bridge internship.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0207/economy.html

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0208/economy.html

I agree that FAS is gone down the drain and not worth dealing with regarding trying to improve employment and training prospects but CE schemes alone whether linked with FAS or not should not be disbanded.