§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Employment, in view of the hardship caused by travel costs of unemployed persons searching for work, if he will consider financial travel assistance in all genuine cases of unemployed people seeking work; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. Golding:I am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that under the job search scheme an unemployed worker may qualify for a free return fare to attend an interview for a job beyond daily travelling distance of home. There are no facilities for the payment of fares for interviews for jobs within recognised daily travelling distance of a workers home.
§ Sir B. Rhys Williamsasked the Secretary of State for Employment what were the numbers of men and women out of work for a continuous period of over six months at the latest count in the United Kingdom; how many of them were heads of household; and what were the comparable figures in 1972 and 1967.
§ Mr. Golding:The following table gives the numbers of unemployed people 297W in Great Britain who had been registered for more than 26 weeks. Information is not available for the United Kingdom. Heads of households are not identified separately in the statistics. However, estimates from the 1975 EEC Labour Force Survey suggest that approximately 70 per cent. of unemployed men and of the order of 15 per cent. of unemployed women were heads of households; similar information is not available for other years.
Males Females October 1967 124,224 19,678 October 1972 262,044 32,110 October 1977 430,607 126,514
£000 Community Industry 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 743 1 1,673 3,224 5,878 10,704 12,204 12,204 Grants paid to the voluntary body which administers, on behalf of the MSC, the scheme to provide temporary employment projects for disadvantaged young people.
Sheltered Employment 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 Running costs … 384 508 674 797 876 882 895 Capital grants … 68 147 189 67 275 743 1,700 Grants paid for the provision of employment under special conditions for registered disabled people whose disablement prevents normal employment. In some cases where the grant for running costs by the Employment Service Agency is paid via a local authority it represents up to 75 per cent. of the payment to the voluntary body by the local authority.
Industrial Rehabilitation 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 195 237 450 412 398 345 401 Grants paid by the Employment Service Agency to cover running costs of voluntary body centres which undertake the industrial rehabilitation of blind people, spastics and mentally disabled people. Residential Training 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 847 1,083 1,485 1,800 3,941 2,142 2,410 Grants paid by the Training Services Agency towards running and capital costs of voluntary body centres which provide vocational training and residential accommodation for people whose disabilities are such as to require the special facilities available at these centres.
Job Creation and Special Temporary Employment The MSC pays grants to sponsors of projects under the job creation programme and will do so for the special temporary employment programme which is to follow it. The actual amounts paid to voluntary bodies who sponsor projects is not readily available but experience of the job creation programme is that 35 per cent. of projects are run by voluntary bodies. Total expenditure or estimated expenditure under these programmes is shown below. Voluntary bodies will also be invited to run projects under the Youth Opportunities Programme but it is not yet possible to estimate how much may be paid to them by way of grants under the Programme. £000 1973–74 1974–75 1975–76 1976–77 1977–78 1978–79 1979–80 Job creation … … — — 1,023 33,662 57,000 38,072 1,995 Special temporary employment … — — — — — 9,780 66,600