§ Mr. McNamaraTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, pursuant to her answers of 16 April 1999,Official Report, columns 364–65, if she will (a) estimate the cost of commissioning a study on the application of information technology across the field of equal opportunities monitoring in order to (i) assist employers in complying with monitoring requirements, (ii) assist analysis of monitoring returns, (iii) assist analysis of the operation of complaints mechanisms and (iv) assess the effectiveness of measures taken to address equality of 144W opportunity, (b) list publicly funded research studies of relevance and (c) estimate the cost of a literature search in this field. [87171]
§ Mr. IngramA major benefit of the new single Equality Commission will be to enable more effective monitoring across the whole equal opportunities field. We are committed to greatly increased use of information technology in all aspect of government and I would expect that the new Commission will see the development of appropriate computerised monitoring systems as a priority. I have no way of making an informed estimate of the cost of a study.
I am not aware of any relevant publicly funded research studies or of any previously completed literature search. I am not able to make an estimate of the cost of the latter.