§ Mr. Wardasked the Secretary of State for Industry what plans he has to extend the work of the manufacturing advisory service.
§ Mr. WakehamThe manufacturing advisory service, which provides subsidised consultancy to small and medium-sized firms, has up to the present been restricted to firms in the engineering sector. From April 1 this restriction is being removed and the service will be available to the whole of manufacturing industry, and a further £3.7 million is to be made available over a three-year period. The eligibility limits remain at 60–1,000 employees.
The extension to non-engineering sectors will result in an increase in the number of applications for the service. Management of MAS for the whole country is at present carried out by PERA, the production engineering research and consultancy organisation at Melton Mowbray, but from April 1 management in the North Western region only will be taken over by Salford University Industrial Centre Ltd to avoid overloading PERA's staff resources.