§ Mr. David Huntasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will specify the statistical returns and reports to be rendered by local employment offices during the period January to June 1978; and give the number of civil servants involved in collating, processing and publishing the statistics; and what is the estimated annual total cost involved.
§ Mr. Golding, pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 10th April 1978], gave the following information:
Employment offices complete each month a number of statistical returns principally concerned with unemployment, vacancies and placings in their own areas. These are processed by computer to provide summaries for the country as a whole, for regions, counties, assisted areas and other areas, some of which are published in the Department of Employment Gazette. The total time spent at headquarters offices in collating, processing and publishing these statistics is equivalent to about 30 staff units at an annual cost of about £150,000.