HC Deb 02 July 1985 vol 82 cc143-5W
Mr. Hickmet

asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will describe the nature of assistance rendered by his Department to Glanford and Scunthorpe parliamentary constituency since June 1983 in the form of employment, training and other schemes, describing the nature of the schemes, the numbers of people affected in each case and the sums of money allocated under each scheme and in total.

1983–84 outturn Numbers 1984–85 provisional outturn Numbers 1985–86 estimated Forecast numbers
£ million £ million £ million
Youth training scheme 380.5 370,000 773.4 390,000 781 384,000
Community programme 393.8 134,400 524.2 161,450 714 212,000
Community industry 23.6 9,600 23.9 9,550 25.2 9,800
Adult training programme 248.7 109,850 256.8 131,800 263.2 220,000
Young workers scheme 58.3 129,540 41.3 66,180 32 52,600
Job splitting scheme 0.3 656 0.2 260 6.6 6,000
Job release schemes 258.2 95,280 280.4 70,000 201.6 51,000
Enterprise allowance scheme 23.2 28,000 77 46,000 111 65,000
Voluntary projects programme 5.5 36,000 9.3 63,000 12 70,000
Temporary short-time working compensation scheme 27.2 16,000 6.1 6,000
TOTAL 1,419.3 929,326 1,992.6 944,240 2,146.6 1,070,400

Notes:

1. The outturn figures are programme expenditure only (ie they do not include administration).

Mr. Peter Morrison

All our employment and training measures are available to people living in the Glanford and Scunthorpe parliamentary constituency. Some 25,000 of them are estimated to have been helped since June 1983, although because of the various bases on which local information is collated an unknown proportion will live in areas outside my hon. Friend's constituency. The relevant measures areThe youth training scheme, which improves young people's preparation for work by providing 16-year-old school leavers and unemployed 17-year-old school leavers with a year's integrated training and work experience. The community programme, which provides a year's employment on projects of benefit to local communities, for the long-term unemployed. Community industry, which provides temporary job opportunities for personally and socially disadvantaged young people. The adult training programme which embraces a range of training provisions in which resources are increasingly concentrated on intensive courses tailored directly to employers' needs and on updating existing skills rather than on more speculative training with uncertain job prospects. The young workers scheme, which encourages employers to provide more full-time permanent jobs for young people under 18 at wages which realistically reflect their youth and inexperience. The job splitting scheme, which supports with a grant employers who split a full-time job or alternatively combine regular overtime hours into a part-time job and take on an unemployed person into the part-time vacancy; or who creates two new part-time jobs for those leaving the youth training scheme or certain other Government schemes. The job release scheme enables older workers to retire early with an allowance until they qualify for the state pension, provided that their employer replaces them with an unemployed person. The part-time job release scheme introduced in October 1983 now provides a further option, for people to part-retire early by giving up part of their job in return for an allowance—and a part-time worker to be taken on. The enterprise allowance scheme, which helps unemployed people start their own business by providing an allowance of £40 per week for a year. The allowance helps compensate for the loss of income when unemployment or supplementary benefit payments cease.

The Department also ran the temporary short-time working compensation scheme until March 1984. This encouraged employers to adopt short-time working as an alternative to redundancies.

Total numbers covered and the money allocated under each scheme are as follows:

2. The numbers for community industry are for only young people (that is excluding supervisors).

3. The numbers for the job release schemes are coverage at year end.

4. The numbers for community programme and community industry are entrants.