§ Mr. Rookerasked the Secretary of State how many applications under the Job Release Scheme have been approved and rejected in each of the assisted areas.
§ Mr. Golding, pursuant to his reply, [Official Report, 10th January 1977], gave the following information:
A complete analysis by assisted areas is not available as these figures are collected on a regional basis. On 10th January the number of applications approved and rejected were as follows:
Approved Rejected South Western 162 7 West Midlands 16 Nil East Midlands 45 Nil Yorkshire and Humberside 635 40 North West* 1,051 85 Northern 354 12 Wales 226 18 Scotland 392 33 * Includes Merseyside and High Peak. The Job Release Scheme came formally into operation on 3rd January. The majority of the applications listed above were received during the period of advance application which started in November.
In addition, over 1,000 recent applications are at present being processed.