A draft plan for the reconfiguration of the State training agency Fás, will be considered by its board at an all-day meeting tomorrow.
The plan will then be forwarded to the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills, Mary Coughlan.
Chairman Michael Dempsey said today that the board was looking at the creation of a “new organisation” to deliver training but that whether the Fás name would be abandoned was not yet decided.
The final plan for the organisation will be worked out through contacts between the board and Ms Coughlan’s department. Mr Dempsey wants the plan for the new organisation to be agreed by Christmas.
He was speaking at the publication today of a report into contracted training delivered to unemployed people and funded by the agency.
An examination of 304 courses found difficulties with the assessment processes of 43. However only three courses were found to have serious difficulties involving the deliberate manipulation of results or the giving of inappropriate assistance to candidates.
Fás director general Paul O’Toole said these three courses, which were delivered by two training providers, were part of eight in all where serious cases of deliberate “non-conformance” had been discovered.
He revealed that 230 people who had completed courses in the northeast were still awaiting their training certificates one year after completing their courses. This was “an unacceptably long time” he said. Eight of the 13 courses involved had now been cleared and the trainees involved would soon be getting their certificates.
The13 courses involved predated the review, the results of which were disclosed today.
In two instances, the cases have been forwarded to gardaí to investigate if they involved fraud.
The two unidentified training providers stated in the report as being associated with serious difficulties have been removed from the National Register of Trainers. In one instance, the matter has been referred to the Garda.
Mr O’Toole said the agency is seeking to recover €121,776 from a training provider, Ashfield Training, but there was little prospect of the money being recovered as the company had gone into liquidation. Ashfield was not dealt with in the review that was the subject of today’s report.
