Open Access Programme (Hansard, 7 December 1998)

§ Mr. Andrew Smith

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 Leigh Lewis to Mr. Chris Pond, dated December 1998: As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has asked me to reply to your questions regarding the Employment Service's computer terminal Open Access Programme, how long the pilot has been running and what plans he has made to make it available nationally. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency. The key objective of the Open Access pilot programme, which has been running in ten Jobcentres in our Newcastle, Manchester South and Wiltshire districts since March, is to trial the use by jobseekers of self-service technology to search out and apply for jobs. The kiosks replace the system of displaying printed vacancy cards, which generally contain limited information, on boards in Jobcentres. Using the kiosks jobseekers can obtain detailed information about a job, print it out, and contact an employer directly from the kiosk telephone. We are currently evaluating the results to date of these pilots in order to assess their effectiveness. At the same time, together with our strategic IT partner, EDS, we are looking at how we can best make use of new technology more widely, including kiosks, public use PCs and the Internet, to ensure that our further development of open access technology can make the most effective use of all of these information media. We hope to reach interim conclusions early next year. I hope this is helpful.