§ Mr. Ralph Howellasked the Secretary of State for Employment, in view of the evidence in the Political and Economic Planning Report "Where are they now?", what plans he has to put the unemployment register on to a computer file.
§ Mr. GoldingMy Department and the Manpower Services Commission are currently making a study, in the light of prospective computer networks in the unemployment benefit offices and Employment Service Agency offices, of the computerisation of data on unemployment and vacancies, with the aim of improving the availability of unemployment and vacancy statistics and of operational infor286W mation required by the Employment Services Agency. The full implementation of the final proposals may not be complete for some years, although some records are already computerised and various computer-aided systems are under active trial.