HC Deb 15 January 2001 vol 361 cc71-2W
Mr. Gordon Prentice

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment if he will list those learning and skills councils which have members drawn from the ethnic minority communities. [145005]

Mr. Wicks

Ethnic minority communities are well represented in the initial appointments to the local Learning and Skills Councils. Of the 47 local Councils, 26 have members drawn from ethnic minority communities and in total there are 45 ethnic minority members of local Councils. This is about 7 per cent. of the total number of Council members and is broadly in line with the proportion of people from ethnic minorities in the national working population. The 26 areas where such members have already been appointed are:

  • Tyne and Wear
  • Derbyshire
  • Leicestershire
  • South Yorkshire
  • North Yorkshire
  • Humberside
  • Birmingham and Solihull
  • The Black Country
  • Coventry and Warwickshire
  • Staffordshire
  • Lancashire
  • Greater Manchester
  • Greater Merseyside
  • Bournemouth, Dorset and Poole
  • The West of England
  • Bedfordshire
  • Cambridgeshire
  • Hertfordshire
  • Suffolk
  • Berkshire
  • Sussex
  • London Central
  • London North
  • London West
  • London South
  • London East.

The Learning and Skills Council will actively seek to appoint further members from an ethnic minority background to the local Councils that do not currently have such members, where those Councils serve areas with a significant ethnic minority population. In a number of areas, vacancies have been left to enable early targeted recruitment of people from ethnic minority communities.