§ Mr. RedmondTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what action heads of his Department's executive agencies are taking to safeguard the provision of pre-retirement courses in the event of such agencies seeking to make economies; and if he will make a statement. [9149]
§ Mr. HoramThe Department provides a range of counselling, "life planning", career management and employee assistance courses to those staff in the Department's executive agencies who have successfully applied under the Department's voluntary early retirement or voluntary severance schemes. The contract for these services is funded centrally by the Department.
Pre-retirement courses for staff approaching normal retirement age are not funded by the Department centrally and provision for them must be considered by individual agencies as part of their forward planning exercises.