HC Deb 09 February 1994 vol 237 c293W
Mr. Cousins

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish a table showing the distribution of expenditure and places under the community action scheme in each standard region; and what are each region's figures as a percentage of the total.

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 M. E. G. Fogden to Mr. Jim Cousins, dated 9 February 1994: The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about Community Action. It may help if I explain that in the current financial year, £31.5 million has been made available to the Employment Services in order to set up and run Community Action. Of this £8.5 million has been allocated for programme expenditure, i.e., the money paid to providers contracted to deliver the programme. The attached table shows the regional breakdown of resource and allocation of places. This has been allocated to the nine Employment Service regions in direct proportion to the percentage of 12 months plus long-term unemployed people within each region. A further £19 million of the budget allocation is used to cover the allowance payments to participants. Each participant on Community Action receives an allowance equivalent to their benefit entitlement plus £10 each week. This budget is held centrally. The remaining £4 million has been set aside to cover the costs of the Employment Service of setting up and running Community Action, the majority of this budget has been allocated to Employment Service regions on the same basis as the programmes money. A small proportion has, though, been retained centrally to cover Head Office running costs and the costs of producing forms and national publicity materials. I hope this is helpful.

Table showing 1993–94 programme budget allocation and places for community action by employment service region
Region Programme allocation £ Number of places Per cent. of total
Northern 473,000 1,120 5.58
Yorkshire and Humberside 767,000 1,810 9.05
East Midlands and Eastern 761,000 1,800 8.98
London and South East 2,672,000 6,310 31.55
South West 613,000 1,450 7.24
Wales 400,000 940 4.72
West Midlands 929,000 2,190 10.97
North West 1,114,000 2,630 13.15
Scotland 742,000 1,750 8.76
Great Britain Total 8,470,000 20,000 100

Notes

  1. 1. The average length of stay on community action is four months, therefore, 20,000 programme places would provide a total of 60,000 opportunities in a full year.
  2. 2. Additional amounts of £19 million to cover allowance payments to participants, and £4 million to cover ES running costs, arc held centrally.