§ Mr. BurnsTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on how much money his Department has contributed to retraining, training and employment schemes and job clubs and all other projects to reduce unemployment in the Chelmsford local authority area in each of the financial years since 1979–80; and what are his forward plans for the next three years.
Mr. Jackson[holding answer 23 May 1991]: The information is not available in the form requested. However in the last 10 years the Employment Department has provided a range of opportunities to assist the unemployed in the Chelmsford area, including youth training, community programme, employment training, advisory services to jobseekers and job clubs. Although, because of changes to the content and collation of statistics, comparable figures are not available for previous years, in the last financial year— 1990–91 —my Department has allocated to the Essex area £12,196,000 to assist training measures and £489,618 to assist unemployment measures.
The Government are determined to ensure that unemployed people have the best possible advice and support to help them find jobs and to provide special help where it is needed. On training, this year, Government are spending more than two and a half times in real terms the amount spent in 1978–79.
In the future training and enterprise provision will be delivered by the training and enterprise councils. Essex TEC has been allocated a budget of £26–5 million in 1991–92 to enable them to plan and deliver training and enterprise provision in their area. The TEC will be paying particular attention to the needs of the unemployed.
Employment Service offices in Chelmsford offer a full range of pogrammes and services to help unemployed people back to work, including advisory interviews, job club, travel to interview scheme, Restart courses and Essex "Jobsearch"-a local job club for the newly unemployed. The employment service Essex area office has a programme budget of £620,156 in 1991–92.