§ Mr. Youngerasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will provide his estimate of the cost, in each financial year for which estimates are available, and of the numbers which he estimates will be assisted, for each of the proposed special employment and training measures from 1 April.
§ Mr. GoldingFinancial provision has been made for the measures as shown below:
million and the estimated cost for 1978–79 is £657 million. The cost of administering special employment measures is not separated in the administration costs of my Department which are estimated to total £50 million in 1977–78 and £48 million in 1978–79.
I am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that the costs of administration of employment offices and job centres can be separated from the other administrative costs of the employment service division of the MSC only at disproportionate cost. The cost of administering the special employment measures run by the commission, i.e. the youth opportunities programme, the special temporary employment programme and the job creation programme, are estimated as £2.7 million in 1977–78 and £8.2 million in 1978–79. The costs of administration of special training measures cannot be separately identified 789W within the operating costs of the industrial training boards and the administrative costs of the training services division of the MSC.
§ Mr. Youngerasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will provide (a) monthly estimates of the numbers of persons covered by the various special employment and training programmes for each month from June 1978 and (b) his estimate of the number of people which the programmes have taken off the unemployment register for each month since April 1977.
§ Mr. Golding(a) The estimated number of people assisted each month since June 1978 by the various special employment and training measures is as follows:
June 1978 … … 310,000 July 1978 … … 305,000 August 1978 … … 295,000 September 1978 … … 280,000 October 1978 … … 260,000 November 1978 … … 265,000 December 1978 … … 275,000 January 1979 … … 255,000 February 1979 … … 257,000 March 1979 … … 253,000 (b) My estimate of the number of people taken off the unemployment register by these measures since April 1977 is:
April 1977 … … 220,000 May 1977 … … 215,000 June 1977 … … 220,000 July 1977 … … 225,000 August 1977 … … 225,000 September 1977 … … 230,000 October 1977 … … 225,000 November 1977 … … 230,000 December 1977 … … 215,000 January 1978 … … 210,000
790W
Numbers assisted £ million Temporary employment subsidy … … … … 512,000 402 Short-time working compensation scheme … … … … 12,000 1 Youth opportunities programme … … … … 130,000 97 Work experience programme … … … … 52,000 Special temporary employment programme … … … … 12,000 11 Job creation programme … … … … 210,000 187 Youth employment subsidy … … … … 47,000 13 Recruitment subsidy for school leavers … … … … 30,000 Job release scheme … … … … 49,000 39 Small firms employment subsidy … … … … 45,000 14 Adult employment subsidy … … … … 800 Less than 1 Community industry … … … … 24,000 30 Job introduction scheme … … … … 1,500 Less than 1 Training places supported in industry … … … … 134,000 143 MSC training course for young people … … … … 170,000
February 1978 … … 225,000 March 1978 … … 225,000 April 1978 … … 215,000 May 1978 … … 210,000 June 1978 … … 190,000 July 1978 … … 190,000 August 1978 … … 180,000 September 1978 … … 185,000 October 1978 … … 170,000 November 1978 … … 180,000 December 1978 … … 185,000 January 1979 … … 165,000 February 1979 … … 175,000 March 1979 … … 180,000
§ Mr. Bulmerasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is his estimate of (a) the total expenditure incurred on the special employment and training measures programme from their introduction in 1975 up to 31 March, (b) the total number of people who have been assisted by the measures up to 31 March (c) the expenditure incurred on and numbers assisted by each of the measures up to 31 March and (d) proposed expenditure and numbers due to be assisted for each of the measures and proposed measures from 1 April 1979 to 31 March 1980.
§ Mr. Golding,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 3 April 1979; Vol. 965, c. 649], gave the following answer:
- (a) The estimated total expenditure on the special employment and training measures from their introduction to 31 March 1979 is £940 million.
- (b) The estimated total number of people assisted so far by the measures is about 1,300,000.
- (c) The estimated number of people assisted so far by each measure, and its estimated gross cost to 31 March 1979 is as follows:
791 - (d) Financial provision has been made for the measures in 1979–80 as shown below:
£m Temporary employment subsidy 42 Temporary short-time working compensation scheme 58 Small firms employment subsidy 60 Job release scheme 71 Adult employment subsidy 1 Job introduction scheme 0.2 Youth opportunities programme 173 Community industry 17 Special temporary employment programme 89 Job creation programme 3 Training 27 It is not possible to provide estimates of the numbers who will be assisted during the year by each of the measures as most of them depend on take-up which cannot be precisely predicted.
§ Mr. Bulmerasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is his estimate of the cost, in each financial year for which estimates are available, of the proposed scheme to provide compensation for short-time working, and also the numbers of people likely to be assisted in each of these financial years.
§ Mr. Golding,pursuant to his reply [Official Report, 3 April 1979; Vol. 965, c. 649], gave the following answer:
The temporary short-time working compensation scheme will come into operation on 1 April 1979. The estimated cost is about £75 million in 1979–80 and the same amount in 1980–81 in order to avoid approximately 55,000 redundancies. However, it is not possible to give an accurate estimate of the number of people who will work short-time in each of these financial year to avoid those redundancies being made, because the number of people who will work short-time to avoid those redundancies is likely to be more than the number of redundancies avoided, due to the varying circumstances, and the pattern of short-time working adopted, in each establishment.