§ Lady Olga MaitlandTo ask the Secretary of State for Employment how he intends to fund workstart and community action programmes announced in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget statement on 16 M arch.
§ Mr.Michael ForsythIn his Budget statement, my right hon. Friend the previous Chancellor announced a new package of employment measures.
The aim of the community action programme is to help long-term unemployed people back into work by providing opportunities for them to do part-time voluntary work of benefit to the community combined with active job search. Participants will continue to receive an allowance equivalent to their benefit plus £10.
The aim of the workstart scheme is to help the long-term unemployed people back into work by paying a temporary employment subsidy to employers for a year. The scheme will be piloted with 1,000 places between four locations, two of which will be run by training and enterprise councils and two run by the Employment Service.
Parliamentary approval for these new services will be sought in supplementary estimates for the Employment Department's programmes and central services vote—class V, vote 1—for workstart pilots provided by training and enterprise councils; and for the Employment 232W Department's Employment Service vote—class V, vote 2 —for workstart pilots and community action. Pending that approval, the following urgent expenditure estimated will be met by repayable advances from the Contingencies Fund:
£ Workstart (Class V, Vote 1) 3,000 Workstart (Class V, Vote 2) 7,000 Community Action (Class V, Vote 2) 200,000