Changes from January 2012

The transfer of the Employment Services and Employment Programmes of FÁS to the Department, following from the transfer of the Community Welfare Service earlier this year, is part of the process of developing and implementing the National Employment and Entitlements Service.  The establishment of this service was approved by the Government in July and the Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton T.D. has published the project plan for its development and implementation. This plan is available on welfare.ie. The National Employment and Entitlements Service will not be a new stand-alone organisation but instead will be about creating a melded culture within the larger organisation and doing business in a more integrated and customer-focused way.

The FÁS Employment Services and Community Employment Programmes have approximately 700 staff and provide a range of services to unemployed people, employed job seekers and employers. 

The design of the new integrated service will be based on a case management approach with the objective of providing a more customised and personal service to customers. In line with international good practice, this new service will focus primarily on activation. There will be a more holistic approach, with the customer dealing with the only one integrated service.

The objective is to encourage and enable customers to embark on developmental pathways appropriate to their needs; pathways to employment and/or training and/or personal development.  A key feature of the new service will be that customers will be expected to engage with these options in order to retain their entitlement to full benefit payments. 

As part of the process of developing and implementing this new business model the Department has commenced a major and comprehensive programme of change management entailing the integration of services previously provided by other agencies – including both the Employment Services and Employment Programmes and Community Welfare Services.

With regard to the timeline for the development of the National Employment and Entitlements Service the assignment and integration of functions and the full transformation to a case management approach focussed on activation, will be a multi-annual programme of work.  However, significant progress has already been made and many aspects of the new service will be delivered within the coming twelve months. 

In the short term services to customers will continue to be delivered from the same locations. One-Stop Shops will be developed in a number of areas during the course of 2012, however, any changes to services will be notified to customers in advance.