§ Mr Home Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give an estimate of the cost per head to public funds of school leavers in Scotland who (a) go into further education, (b) take places in the youth opportunities programme and (c) become unemployed.
§ Mr. Alexander FletcherComparable information in reply to parts(a), (b) and (c) is not available. The information which is available is as follows:
- (a) so far as further education is concerned it is not possible from the available statistics to provide any such estimate in respect of school leavers specifically. On the basis of Scottish local authorities' financial returns and full-time equivalent figures of enrolments to part-time and full-time non-advanced further education courses at local authority further education establishments, the nearest estimate of cost per head is £1,680 per year, at November 1980 price levels;
- (b) the average gross cost of maintaining a young person on the Youth Opportunities Programme is £38 per week. After taking into account the benefits that participants would otherwise have claimed and other tax and national insurance effects, the net weekly cost is approximately two-thirds of this figure; and
- (c) the scale rate of supplementary benefit for a 16 or 17 year old non-householder, together with housing addition, is £15.25 per week. The total cost to public funds would be dependent on the duration of registered unemployment and for school leavers, will also be affected by recent changes in the entitlement of school leavers to supplementary benefit.