Fás board to agree plan for new 'world-class' skills body

A PLAN for a “new world-class skills organisation” is scheduled to be agreed at a meeting of the Fás board today.

The draft plan will be forwarded to the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills Mary Coughlan before it is finalised. Fás chairman Michael Dempsey said yesterday he would like to see the process completed by the end of the year.

It has not yet been decided if the national training authority’s name will be changed. Mr Dempsey was speaking yesterday at a press conference where Fás announced new control measures to oversee contracted out training courses for the unemployed.

Director General Paul O’Toole said the Garda had been called in to investigate possible fraud in the case of two training providers.

A report published yesterday showed that in a review conducted of 304 courses, 43, or 15 per cent, had difficulties with assessment procedures. The trainees involved in these courses had had to resit assessments or even retrain due to the difficulties with assessments.

In relation to three courses delivered by two training providers, the review found “the deliberate manipulation of results or inappropriate assistance to candidates”. In one, the trainer has been removed from the National Register of Trainers.

The report notes that, in a case involving Ashfield Training, Fás is seeking recovery of €121,776 but is not hopeful of receiving the money as the company is now in liquidation. The case of Ashfield was not covered in the review though it is mentioned in the report.

In a case involving a community enterprise scheme, a training provider was issuing false certificates and the matter has been notified to the Garda.

Thirteen courses in the north-east – not covered by the review – had difficulties which have seen 230 people waiting more than a year for their certificates. Eight of these courses had now been cleared, Mr O’Toole said.

The authority had ramped up the number of courses it was providing to unemployed people since the downturn and was now delivering more than 4,000 courses a year.

“It was inevitable these sort of problems would arise and they are not unique to Fás,” Mr O’Toole said. There were many very fine training providers delivering excellent training, he said, with 100,000 people receiving training this year. “We expanded very rapidly to meet the needs of the unemployed.” He said that while difficulties had been discovered in relation to assessments, the quality of the tuition that was being delivered was high.

Asked if he had an office in the Birr Technology Centre, in Co Offaly, where Fás rents office space for use as its headquarters as part of the decentralisation process, Mr O’Toole said he did not.

Asked if he been there, he said once, to pay a visit to the staff based there.

In 2007, Fás signed a 10-year lease on the offices. When fit-out costs are taken into account, the lease costs €200,000 per annum. Mr O’Toole said the lease can be broken after five years. He said the Government will decide what to do about decentralisation next year.

Asked if he had taken any first-class flights as director general of Fás, he said he hadn’t been on an aircraft since taking over the new role. The former director general of Fás, Rody Molloy, resigned from the position after controversy over spending controls at the authority. His use of first-class travel was among the issues that caused disquiet.

Mr Dempsey said 280 staff had left Fás, which now had 1,990 employees. He said he had very strong views on the need to be careful with taxpayers’ money.