§ Mr. WareingTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the various grants for which employers may apply in order to facilitate the employment of disabled people; and if he will indicate in each case(a) the amounts allocated by his Department and (b) the amounts taken up by employers, in each of the last 10 years.
§ Mr. Eggar[holding answer 6 November 1989]: My Department provides a variety of help to facilitate the employment of people with disabilities, including six special schemes to help overcome specific barriers to work. Two of these offer grants to employers:
- (a) the Job Introduction Scheme—grants towards an individual's wages during a trial period.
- (b) the Adaptations to Premises and Equipment Scheme—grants to employers to adapt their premises or equipment to enable a specific disabled employee to work more effectively and productively.
The other four offer help directly to individuals. Money is allocated to the special schemes as a bloc, and expenditure on any one scheme is not constrained by estimates for that scheme; these are based each year on previous take-up and other evidence of likely demand.
Between 1979–80 and 1988–89, total expenditure on all the special schemes for the disabled rose from £743,000 per annum to £5,669,000 per annum.
The financial information requested about the two schemes is as follows:
Job introduction scheme Year Expenditure estimate £ Actual expenditure £ 1979–80 334,000 297,201 1980–81 457,000 269,433 1981–82 425,000 354,588 1982–83 531,500 439,861 1983–84 571,000 567,980 1984–85 646,000 659,000 1985–86 760,000 674,000 1986–87 837,000 574,000 1987–88 920,000 619,000 1988–89 609,000 614,000
Adaptations to premises and equipment scheme Year Expenditure estimate £ Actual expenditure £ 1979–80 330,000 50,000 1980–81 381,000 64,233 1981–82 150,000 71,469 1982–83 177,000 107,334 1983–84 280,000 134,412 1984–85 150,000 243,649 1985–86 250,000 295,000 1986–87 450,000 256,000 1987–88 480,000 404,000 1988–89 354,000 423,000