§ 39. Mr. Moonmanasked the Secretary of State for Employment what action he has taken to implement the recommendations of the 1972 reports on hard-core unemployment of the socially handicapped.
§ Mr. John FraserI assume that my hon. Friend is referring to the discussion paper, "Resettlement Policy and Services for Disabled People", issued by my Department in July 1972.
Following the lines suggested in the paper, four resettlement service trials took place between April 1973 and December 1974 to test amongst other things, whether more profesisonal assessment facilities should be made more readily available to disabled and other disadvantaged people. These trials are now the responsibility of the Employment Service Agency which plans to make recommendations to the Manpower Services Commission in the late summer of 1976 442W following evaluation by means of interviews with clients six and 12 months after they have used the service. Interviews will continue until the end of 1975, and the final evalution will be ready by mid-1976.
No decisions on the development of a new service will be taken until the final evaluation. Meantime, other experiments to test alternative types of service for socially disadvantaged people are being carried out.