§ Mr. WorthingtonTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland why all men and women, whether married or unmarried, are required to be entered as married on Training Agency forms ET4, ET6, ET69 and ET67.
§ Mr. Lang[holding answer 1 March 1990]: Applicants for Employment Training are no longer required to provide the Training Agency with information about marital status. However, forms ET4, ET6, ET67 and ET69 are used to enter information on the Training Agency's computer which will accept the input only if all entries on the forms, including the redundant "marital status" entry, have been completed. To overcome this, a blanket entry of "married" on all these forms was agreed to be preferable to a costly interim software amendment to the computer system. The computer system is to be revised in April 1990 and charges will be introduced at that time to resolve this problem.