HC Deb 03 March 1999 vol 326 c812W
Mr. Green

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many 18 to 24-year-olds who had joined the New Deal had left for unknown destinations by 31 December 1998. [67480]

Mr. Andrew Smith

[holding answer 25 January 1999]: 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. Damian Green, dated 3 March 1999: As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State for Education and Employment has asked me to reply direct to your question regarding the number of 18–24 year olds who have joined New Deal and have left for unknown destinations. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency. The latest available figures are for the end of December and were published on 25 February in the DfEE Statistical First Release. These show that of the 214,000 young people who had started New Deal, 25,680 had left the Gateway to unknown destinations. We have taken steps to make more effective links between different sources of information about people's destinations and we have been conducting monthly follow-up surveys of these clients. These have established that many of those who sign off benefit without stating their destination have actually found work. In December, for example, around half of leavers into unknown destinations, who have, on being contacted, divulged their destination, had actually found work. In addition to the monthly survey, we are also investigating changes to the Employment Service's IT systems in order to establish whether it is possible to capture better destination information initially. The latest figures to the end of December show that 19% of leavers from the Gateway leave for unknown destinations. This is lower than for other leavers from Jobseeker's Allowance.