The Department of Employment and Learning (DEL) has been in training for years but still doesn’t seem fit for purpose. In Derry two days ago, job interviews for trainers under DEL’s Steps to Work programme were cancelled without explanation at a few hours’ notice.

The jobs had been advertised by English-based firm A4e — god be with the days when companies had names that meant something — which had been selected by DEL to take over training functions previously exercised by a consortium of local groups, including Derry Youth and Community Workshop, Rutledge Joblink, the North West Centre for Learning & Development and the North West Regional College.

On Tuesday morning, it emerged that the process for awarding the contract may not have been properly completed. There is no suggestion that the company had behaved improperly. But it may be that the Department had behaved incompetently — it wouldn’t be the first time.

A4e had been set to cover Derry, Limavady, Magherafelt, Cookstown and Coleraine. Another English company, TWL, had been given the franchise for, broadly speaking, the Belfast area. The remit was to help jobless adults back into employment. Steps to Work is aimed at New Deal clients including 18-24 year-olds, lone parents, musicians, income support, incapacity benefit and job-seeker’s allowance claimants, the self-employed and partners.

The call for tenders for the programme had been published by DEL and the Central Procurement Directorate (CPD) of the Department of Finance and Personnel on April 22. The closing date for bids was June 6.

Local groups say this allowed little time for preparation of tenders to conform to the requirements.

The DEL/CPD procurement document laid down a number of criteria. These included that “tenderers must bid to provide ALL of the services required,” “produce evidence of working in partnership with the Third [voluntary] Sector,” “clearly demonstrate...that they have sufficient numbers of qualified/specialist staff in place to meet the demand” and show an ability to “respond to regional and local employment opportunities”.

Alex Attwood of the SDLP, who has taken the lead in questioning the award of the contracts, said yesterday: “It is very hard to understand how these two companies could be said to have met these criteria.”

TWL, according to Attwood in a letter to DEL Minister Sir Reg Empey last week, had only one member of staff and no premises in the North at the time the tender was allocated. A4e had one employee in Derry based in a single-room office in the Embassy building on Strand Road. Neither company had previously worked in the North.

Referring to TWL, Attwood asked Empey on what basis “local organisations with proven experience in these matters” had been rejected in favour of an organisation “with only one staff member in Northern Ireland, no accommodation, no facilities, no experience...?” How had it been decided that TWL was better placed than the local groups to “respond to regional and local employment opportunities”?

As for providing “ALL of the services required,” TWL had told a local training organisation in writing that it intended “to act as Managing Agent, subcontracting out the majority of the provision and filling gaps where required”.

Members of the DEL scrutiny committee who challenged the contracts were told on September 10th that their questions couldn’t be answered because the process had not been finalised. Despite this, both companies had already advertised for staff to fulfil the contracts.

An A4e advertisement appeared in the Derry Journal on September 7. The closing date for applications was given as four days later. Interviews were scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

TWL had advertised on September 4, announcing interviews for 11 positions to take place during the week beginning next Monday, September 22. The programme is intended to come on-stream on September 28.

It seems that, even now, the contracts are of indeterminate status. The cancellation of the A4e interviews on Tuesday followed loud complaints in the local press, backed by SDLP leader Mark Durkan, about the process which had led to the rejection of the local bidders.

On the same day, the Department, asked for its understanding of the significance of the cancellation of the interviews, responded through a spokesman: “The procurement process is ongoing and the Department cannot comment on the specific actions of an organisation.” The local groups which lost out say they suspect that DEL had decided in advance that training in the North would be transferred to the private sector, that this was the decisive factor and that they’d never really stood a chance.

DEL was embarrassed last year when the company to which it had handed the contract for training mechanics across the North, Carter and Carter, turned out to have no facilities here and to be in deep financial trouble. The contract was abandoned. The company collapsed shortly afterwards and was bought up by TWL.

Liam Gallagher, secretary of Derry Trades Council, told the local press last week: “This is a scandalous situation and there is no justification other than satisfying the political dream of privatising training services in Northern Ireland.”