§ Mr. BlunkettTo ask the Secretary of State for the Education and Employment how many people in each county and region have received assistance under access to work; and in each case if she will give the number who were(a) employed and (b) unemployed at the time of their application. [15590]
§ Mr. ForthResponsibility 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.
11WLetter from Mike Fogden to Mr. David Blunkett, dated 19 February 1996:
The Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about the number of people in each region who have received assistance under Access to Work; and whether they were employed or unemployed.Access to Work began in June 1994. The number of people who received help in 1994–95 (including those helped under the previous special schemes) was 10,394. Of those, 7,669 were new applicants under Access to Work. In 1995–96 up to the end of December, 12,267 people received help, of whom 8,206 were new applicants.The annex gives the number of new applicants by region and whether they were employed or unemployed. We do not keep records by county.For these purposes we count as "unemployed" those who did not have a job when they applied for Access to Work, and newly employed people who had gained that employment with the help of Access to Work.I hope this is helpful.