HC Deb 12 April 1994 vol 241 cc58-9W
Mr. Robert Ainsworth

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what was(a) the total money spent, (b) the percentage of that money allocated according to decisions made by Ministers on competitive bids and (c) the percentage of that money allocated according to some statistical measure of need in the last available operational year of (i) Employment Service programme development fund, (ii) education business partnerships, (iii) teacher placement scheme, (iv) compacts, (v) business start-up scheme, (vi) local initiative fund and (vii) TEC Challenge.

Miss Widdecombe

Money spent on these programmes in the last available operational year—1992–93—was:

£ million
(i) Programme Development Fund 4.710
(ii) Education Business Partnerships 1.980
(iii) Teacher Placement Scheme 3.413
(iv) Compacts 5.356
(v) Business Start-up Scheme 62.018
(vi) Local Initiative Fund 49.700

Expenditure for (i) was for Great Britain; expenditure for (ii) to (iv) was for England. Funding for TEC Challenge was not available in the 1992–93 operational year.

Budgets for the programme development fund were allocated with the regional level of long-term unemployment as a key consideration.

Budgets for TEC challenge were allocated in 1993–94 on the basis of competitive bids.

Budgets for the remaining programmes were allocated on the basis of proposals by training and enterprise councils in their business plans, taking into account commitments arising from previously approved programmes, performance against previous plans, for the business start-up scheme and the local initiative fund, the size of working population in different areas, and for the teacher placement service, the number of teachers.