§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Employment, further to his letter of 21 January to the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South, what plans are being made by the Manpower Services Commission to expand its special measures in North Staffordshire; what is the specific increase in resources being made available; what are the resources; and what will be the extent of the increased financial aid he forecast.
§ Mr. Peter Morrison[pursuant to his reply, Official Report, 3 February 1981]: Annual plans for special programmes for the unemployed—the youth opportunities programme for unemployed young people and the special temporaruy employment programme for certain unemployed adults—are prepared by area boards which cover convenient geographical areas.
I am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that Wolverhampton area board, which has jurisdiction over North Staffordshire, in common with all others in Great Britain has no specific budget of its own. Budgets were allocated to area boards as part of the planning process during the first year of special programmes. For subsequent planning years area boards have been asked to prepare plans which would meet the needs of unemployed young people, both in size and type of provision.
Detailed plans for YOP in 1981–82 have not yet been completed. The community enterprise programme replaces the special temporary employment programme in April 1981 and will be available nation-wide. The national target for this programme is 25,000 filled places by April 1982. Regional targets have yet to be determined but Midlands region is likely to be asked to achieve a target of around 3,000 filled places by April 1982. It is not possible to predict where in a region sponsors will be found or where schemes will operate.