HC Deb 22 June 1984 vol 62 c296W
Mr. Boyes

asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many people, by age and sex, have left a youth training scheme in the Houghton and Washington constituency and in the borough of Sunderland; and how many of them did not obtain permanent employment.

Mr. Peter Morrison

[pursuant to his reply, 19 June 1984, c. 115]: Comprehensive information on young people leaving the youth training scheme in the areas concerned is not available. However, the records of the Sunderland careers service, whose area covers Houghton le Spring, Washington and Sunderland, show that 1,432 young people (751 boys aad 681 girls) known to it left a first placement on the scheme between 1 April 1983 and 17 May 1984. Of these:

Number Per cent.
Entered employment 513 36
Entered another place on the scheme 420 29
Returned to full-time education or entered a community industry scheme 14 1
Were unemployed on leaving *485 34
* 273 boys and 212 girls.

Mr. Sheerman

asked the Secretary of State for Employment, of the total recorded entrants to the youth training scheme, how many, approximately, have changed schemes and therefore been double counted; and what is his estimate of the number of individuals who have joined the scheme in its first 12 months since April 1983, eliminating those double-counted.

Mr. Peter Morrison

[pursuant to his reply, 19 June 1984, c. 115]: The precise information is not available in the form requested.

However, there were some 354,000 entrants to the youth training scheme in 1983–84. This figure includes the double counting of those young people who left one scheme and subsequently joined another.

Over 90,000 young people left the scheme in 1983–84. Their destinations are not known but, on the basis of a small sample survey of early leavers in November 1983, it is estimated that about one third of the leavers re-entered the scheme. This suggests that about 30,000 were included more than once in the total number of entrants.

On this basis, the best available estimate is that about 320,000 young people participated in the scheme in 1983–84.