§ 28. Mr. Sheermanasked the Paymaster General how many extra community programme places would be needed to ensure that a place was available for every eligible unemployed person.
§ 46. Mr. Lofthouseasked the Paymaster General what is the ratio of eligible unemployed to available places for the extra 25,000 community programme places announced in the Budget.
§ Mr. LangThe community programme is just one of a range of options available to long-term unemployed104W people. We are expanding the programme to 255,000 places by November which in a full year will provide opportunities for up to 330,000 participants. There are about 1.5 million unemployed people in the eligible group.
§ 31. Mrs. Clwydasked the Paymaster General if he will make a statement on the future of the training element of the community programme.
§ Mr. LangThe aim of the community programme is to provide temporary employment. But training can be provided for workers both by agents and sponsors as part of their projects. And as part of the wider opportunities training programme. We shall continue to encourage sponsors to provide training on their projects and aim to provide broadly the same amount of training nationally under the wider opportunities training programme in 1986–87 as in the previous year.
§ 49. Mr. Colin Shepherdasked the Paymaster General how many community programme places are currently unfilled.
§ Mr. LangOn 7 February 1986, the latest available date, the number of unfilled community programme vacancies nationally was 24,258.
The total number of community programme vacancies notified to jobcentres from April 1985 to February 1986 was 224,300. During the same period, 195,700 community programme vacancies were filled by jobcentres.