§ Mr. Allan StewartTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what decisions he has reached about the bids submitted to him from local enterprise companies wishing to run training credits pilot schemes; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. RifkindI am delighted to announce that, of the three bids submitted to me, two have been approved for further development.
The two successful bids are from Fife Enterprise and Grampian Enterprise, each of which will receive £10,000 to work up detailed bids by 27 July. Both successful bids offered imaginative approaches to mounting training credits pilot schemes in their area, and were able to demonstrate wide-ranging support from both the private and public sectors locally.
I regret that the third bid—from Caithness and Sutherland Enterprise—was not successful. However it too had interesting elements, and I have therefore asked that the Training Agency Highland area office explore with the consortium the extent to which its ideas can be developed within the existing training framework.
That two out of the three bids submitted from Scottish local enterprise companies succeeded on merits (as compared with 15 out of 29 bids submitted from England and Wales) clearly demonstrates the quality of these Scottish bids.
I congratulate the two successful local enterprise companies on their efforts to date, and look forward to receiving their detailed bids in due course.