Privatize FAS

djsomers

Why are the accounts of FAS no longer published on their website? There are no figures since 2007. It looks to me like FAS used to cover its costs, well just about; but now they are in a black hole. Does anyone else agreee with me that Fas would be better if privatised?

Permabear

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djsomers

Eh no. Think about it a bit more than that.

Victor

How would that work?

You do realise that most of their budget is spent on training courses provided by others?

Dirk Gently

how would you privatise it. charge unemployed people to do courses? get someone a job and take a percentage of the wages for a few years? It would be very difficult to run it for profit without some kind of debt being passed to the poor fool who avails of it's services. Essentially it's suppose to help people get employment, then the gov taxes their wages and saves on dole payments. How would the private company make a profit unless it became a conveyor belt of cheap indebted labour supplied to factories for a percentage? Potential there for people to be blacklisted too if they went their own route trying to find employment.

What kind of model where you thinking of? I just don't see it.

djsomers

Well here we are, so narrow-minded. There is a great business oppertunity here and a great budget boosting oppertunity for the government. Alas so much short-sightedness. Sigh!

Dirk Gently

djsomers wrote: »

Well here we are, so narrow-minded. There is a great business oppertunity here and a great budget boosting oppertunity for the government. Alas so much short-sightedness. Sigh!

explain how it would work, that's all anyone is asking.

djsomers

Who pays for training now (Government)
Who will pay for trainnig (Government)
The only change would be that FAS will be privately run, therefore costs associated will no longer be the burden of the government. Training should be provided as a service (at cost) the service must have an SLA, or invoices are not paid.

Dirk Gently

how would the private company make money though. Making a profit is the sole motivation of any private company. Your basically talking about privatising losses to keep them off the public books.

fly_agaric

djsomers wrote: »

Training should be provided as a service (at cost) the service must have an SLA, or invoices are not paid.

Govt pays for cost of the service, running costs, & also a profit % for the private enterprise that replaces FAS. You can't privatise anything without providing a potential for profit. I realise it might still work out cheaper for Govt. if the private company is more efficient than FAS.

djsomers

Well of course

Dirk Gently

so the gov pays for the profit. what is the penalty for failing to find someone employment? Is this a risk free enterprise for the private company? get 1 person a job and make a profit, fail to get 10 people a job and there is no loss? Seems like the gov is taking all the risk and paying all the bills.

djsomers

Now you are getting the idea. Keep thinking

Dirk Gently

djsomers wrote: »

Now you are getting the idea. Keep thinking

how about you just spell out how it saves the gov money and makes the private comp a profit at the same time before the boxing match starts on rte in a few mins.

djsomers

If you were given money for finding people jobs wouldnt you find people jobs?
At a cost that is less than the cost of social welfare.

seclachi

Hang on, so instead of the government using a department it has spent decades building up, it fires the lot of them and closes it all up.

Then a private company comes in, rehires the useful guys and charges the government for what they used to own + there own cut ?

I would say that would be mad, but the sad truth of it is that it could quite possibly end up cheaper simply because a private company wouldn't have to concern its self about the unions and would get better performance out of its workers.

Dirk Gently

djsomers wrote: »

If you were given money for finding people jobs wouldnt you find people jobs?

sure, once there was an endless supply of jobs for all my applicants. Although if I only needed to find enough of them a job to turn a profit and not worry about penalties for not finding the rest work then I'd just stick enough of them in mc donnalds and collect my gov cheque. Let the gov worry about paying the dole for the ones I didnt find work.

or I'd work out some scam where by companies employ my applicants short term at cheap rates, let them go after a month or so, hire new ones, let them go and so on.

so much potential to milk it when profit is the motivation. Sure I could even have the companies provide their own training, get paid off the gov for it, then get them to hire the staff they trained and get me my cut. It's a dangerous road, wide open for abuse which could make Fas look like a well oiled and efficient machine.

Lirael

djsomers wrote: »

If you were given money for finding people jobs wouldnt you find people jobs?
At a cost that is less than the cost of social welfare.

I haven't heard of more ridiculous idea

that would mean that you want to turn FAS into standard recruitment agency as thousands of them operating in Ireland

question - who would be paying for finding a job - me as a jobseeker??????

are you crazy???

I think the only solution would be forcing FAS to offer jobseekers' jobs not only putting offers on website ... or placing courses ...

mind - in most countries in the world that kind of offices are always operated by government, the point is that some are more effective and some are less ...

djsomers

Oh yes Fas is a well oiled machine ;P

There is no need to change the guidlines under which Fas is run. In fact there would be more protection for jobs, govt and development under a private body.

Dirk Gently

djsomers wrote: »

Oh yes Fas is a well oiled machine ;P

my point is your model could make it look like one. How would you make it accountable and value for money for the gov (tax payers)

djsomers

Any guesses as to what Fas has lost the government in the last year and how many unemployed people it stuck into crap jobs that they lost or left to go back on social welfare? Government needs to incentivise the whole circle. At the moment there is no drive for FAS or the people it trains to get jobs for the unemployed.

djk1000

FAS does privatise some training courses already. I know this because I read about an investigation into falsifying results because the contracted company was under pressure to come up with good results. FAS of course kept this company on and they did the same thing a second time.

T-Square

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

That is a rhetorical question, right?

Of course, people should pay for their education.

But I'm sure a lot of your don't realize that apprentices
already pay for the education indirectly.

Apprentice mechanics for example, are ~payed~ 200/300 quid a week
but they are actually quite productive and earn their employer
a lot of money.

If working for 300 quid a week, when they should be getting
five times that amount, isn't paying for your education, I don't know what is!

djsomers

Of course, but this is FAS. There are worse scandals, but in truth the government are hard on them about these issues. It comes down to good business practice, incentivisation and proper regulation.

djsomers

Hello T-Square, This is one inherrent problem with FAS, all the money goes to buisness in the wrong way. It the job finding and placement that is important here (and the development of the training). But in FAS they reward business for taking an employee. Businesses should be happy to get an employee (not cheap labour).

Permabear

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TJJP

clown bag wrote: »

how about you just spell out how it saves the gov money and makes the private comp a profit at the same time before the boxing match starts on rte in a few mins.

Spell indeed.

djsomers wrote: »

Any guesses as to what Fas has lost the government in the last year and how many unemployed people it stuck into crap jobs that they lost or left to go back on social welfare? Government needs to incentivise the whole circle. At the moment there is no drive for FAS or the people it trains to get jobs for the unemployed.

ANCO, CERT and so on, we’ve been here before. This kind of simplistic nonsense isn't going to cure anything. The PDs are dead and gone.

The major problem in our economy isn't jobs, education and training; it is costs, costs, costs and perhaps orientation. This isn't a cheap (quality) manufacturing location anymore. We have to compete on a different level - enforcing MNCs to contribute to the training of those central to their activities won't do us any favours.

Mental Mickey

T-Square wrote: »

That is a rhetorical question, right?

Of course, people should pay for their education.

But I'm sure a lot of your don't realize that apprentices
already pay for the education indirectly.

Apprentice mechanics for example, are ~payed~ 200/300 quid a week
but they are actually quite productive and earn their employer
a lot of money.

If working for 300 quid a week, when they should be getting
five times that amount, isn't paying for your education, I don't know what is!

How can someone be expected to pay for a course if, for example, they have to support a wife and kids, and pay bills on just over two hundred quid a week???

That is why FAS currently offers its training courses to unemployed people free of charge.

SLUSK

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Yes people should bear the costs of their own job training since it is they who will benefit from it.

djsomers

Who is talking about charging people for training. Stop this right now.

Iwasfrozen

T-Square wrote: »

Of course, people should pay for their education.

Why exactly ?