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  Job scheme 'like Mary Celeste',
says MP free web page hit counter 		 

Some of Norfolk's main arterial roads have seen a shocking number of fatalities and serious injuries
The public accounts committee called
the jobskills scheme one of the
'worst run schemes it has examined'

SOUTH NORFOLK MP Richard Bacon has likened Northern Ireland's largest training programme to the Mary Celeste, the infamous abandoned ship, with nobody seemingly in charge of the £0.5 billion scheme.

Mr Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, was speaking as the committee's report on the Jobskills scheme was published today (Thursday 3 November, 2005).


The programme was launched in 1995 and was intended to raise the skills level of those for whom academic education is inappropriate.
 


The Committee describes the scheme as one of the worst-run programmes it has seen, with a quite astonishing catalogue of failures and control weaknesses.  The Report finds disturbing levels of complacency within the Department of Employment and Learning and makes it clear that Jobskills has not received the senior management attention it deserves.  Jobskills was also not compared with similar schemes elsewhere in the UK, a common problem for Departments in Northern Ireland. 

Mr Bacon added: "It is very hard to point to evidence that anyone at the Department had a sufficient grip of the problems with Jobskills.  People in Northern Ireland deserve better.  It is time that public services in the Province are at least on a par with the rest of the United Kingdom".

 

 

2 November 2005

See also:
PAC REPORT: Jobskills
PARLIAMENT: MP slams cash for 'phantom' tourists
SPEECHES: Individual Learning Accounts

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