§ Ms AbbottTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many places have been taken up in the new community action programme announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget statement on 16 March; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Michael ForsythResponsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from M. E. G. Fogden to Ms Diane Abbott, dated 29 November 1993:
As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency the Secretary of State has asked me to write to you direct to respond to your Parliamentary Question to him about the number of Community Action places currently taken up. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency.It may help if I explain the background to Community Action and our plans for the provision of the announced places.Community Action is a programme to help long-term unemployed people back into work, by providing work experience on projects of benefit to local communities. In the Spring Budget the then Chancellor committed £113.5m, sufficient to provide 20,000 places and help 60,000 people in a full year. Following extensive consultation and development of this new programme, to ensure quality and value for money, the first places became available at the end of July.Community Action opportunities will be delivered, in the main, by voluntary/charitable organisations and my people in Regional Offices were given responsibility for contracting with them. The contracting round is now almost complete and 165 355W contracts have, so far, been awarded. At the end of October there were 1,200 long-term unemployed people participating in the programme and numbers are increasing steadily. The programme is planned to build to 20,000 filled places by the end of March.I hope this is helpful.As decided by the Administration Committee of the House of Commons, Chief Executive replies to written Parliamentary Questions will now be published in the Official Report. I will also place a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.