Employment Advice (Hansard, 7 July 1993)

§ Mr. Michael Forsyth

Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service Agency under its chief executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given.

Letter from Mr. M. Fogden to Ms Ann Coffey, dated 7 July 1993:

As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to write to you direct to 198W respond to your Parliamentary Question to him about contracted out programme expenditure. This responsibility rests with the Employment Service and not the Benefits Agency. It is something which the Secretary of State has delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Employment Service (ES).

There are a range of jobsearch and advisory programmes which are run on behalf of the ES by organisations from the public, private and voluntary sectors. In the attached tables I have set out details of the programme expenditure for the main Employment Service programmes delivered by external providers for the period April 1989-March 1993. These are Restart Courses, Jobclubs, job search seminars and Job Review Workshops.

The figures given include fares to participants. This is because people who attend programmes are re-imbursed the cost of travelling from their homes to the seminars, workshops or courses. The providers then recover this money from the Employment Service.

A regional breakdown of figures is available for the last two years only. Table 1 therefore gives the total national expenditure on contracts for these programmes between 1989 and 1991. Tables 2 and 3 list the spend by region for 1991–92 and 1992–93. Table 4 lists the expenditure from April 1989 for the Manchester East Employment Service area, which includes Stockport. It has not been possible to separate out Jobclub and job search seminar payments.

I hope this is helpful.

As decided by the Administration Committee of the House of Commons, Chief Executive replies to written Parliamentary Questions will now be published in the Official Report. I will also place a copy of this letter in the Library of the House.

Table 1
Expenditure on programme contracts National totals 1989–90 and 1990–91
£000's
	1989–90	1990–91
Restart courses	6,093	6,204
Jobclubs	16,455	19,215
Job search seminar	Nil	Nil
Job Review Workshops	Nil	Nil

Notes:

Expenditure by region is not available.

Job search seminars and Job Review Workshops commenced August 1991.

All figures are inclusive of VAT and fares.

Table 2
Expenditure on programme contracts 1991–92 regional totals
£000's
Region	Restart courses	Jobclubs and Job search seminars	Job review workshop
Northern	936	2,036	44
Yorkshire and Humberside	947	2,305	72
East Midlands and Eastern	873	2,941	69
London and South East	2,051	9,538	543
South West	793	2,225	119
Office for Wales	560	1,456	68
West Midlands	1,615	3,487	62
North West	1,877	4,387	80
Office for Scotland	1,277	3,140	80
Total	10,929	31,515	1,147

Note:

All figures are inclusive of VAT and fares. 199W

Table 3
Expenditure on programme contracts 1992–93 regional totals
	Restart courses	Jobclubs and job search seminars	Job review workshop
Region	£ thousands	£ thousands	£ thousands
Northern	725	2,494	109
Yorkshire and Humberside	746	3,193	299
East Midlands and Eastern	838	4,091	264
London and South East	2,683	14,307	1,633
South West	667	3,479	374
Office for Wales	576	2,060	133
West Midlands	1,537	4,456	231
North West	1,508	5,908	352
Office for Scotland	824	3,647	266
TOTAL	10,104	43,635	3,661

Note:

All figures are inclusive of VAT and fares.

Table 4
Expenditure on programme contracts Manchester East employment service area
	1989–90	1990–91	1991–92	1992–93
Restart courses	81,208	135,936	206,741	221,823
Jobclubs and job search seminars	263,733	384,388	563,245	692,805
Job review workshops	Nil	Nil	18,662	58,163

Notes:

Manchester East area covers the three metropolitan boroughs of Oldham, Rochdale and Stockport.

Job search seminars and Job Review Workshops commenced August 1991.

All figures are inclusive of VAT and fares.