§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what discussions he has had with the Office for National Statistics with regard to the production of an assessment of each of the New Deal programmes; and if he will make a statement. [102101]
§ Ms Jowell[holding answer 9 December 1999]: Officials from both the Department for Education and Employment and the Office for National Statistics liaise regularly to discuss and analyse the impact that New Deal programmes have had on unemployment figures and other economic indicators published by the Office for National Statistics. Evaluation is carried out independently by outside contractors and the Department's internal analysis and monitoring uses Government Statistical Service figures and internal data.
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many letters have been sent to lone parents inviting them to participate in the New Deal for Lone Parents. [102103]
§ Ms Hodge[holding answer 9 December 1999]: From the national introduction of the New Deal for Lone Parents on 26 October 1998, to the end of October 1999, initial invitation letters were sent to 434,570 lone parents.
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what is his latest assessment of substitution, dead-weight and displacement in each of the New Deal schemes. [102107]
§ Ms Jowell[holding answer 9 December 1999]: There is a comprehensive evaluation programme in place for all elements of New Deal. The article "New Deal for the young unemployed: monitoring and evaluation", published in Labour Market Trends in November 1998, sets out a framework which is broadly common across New Deal. We are committed to publishing the final reports of all these evaluations.
New Deal is a long term initiative, still in its early days. Consequently, most evaluation is also still in progress and is yet to report. However, Employment Service Research report ESR33, published in December 1999 and available in the Library, provides an independent assessment, by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), of the effects of the New Deal for Young People in its first year. This provides encouraging evidence of the early impact of the New Deal. On deadweight it found that
Approximately 50 per cent. of individuals leaving unemployment via the NDYP would have done so in absence of the programme".and that thisis broadly in line with estimates from other active labour market programmes".On substitution and displacement it found thatNDYP does not appear to have had any significant effect on unemployment of others than the client group so far".
§ Mr. BercowTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many persons have left their New Deal scheme to be placed on(a) Incapacity Benefit, (b) Income Support, (c) Jobseeker's Allowance and (d) any other benefit. [102109]
§ Ms Jowell[holding answer 9 December 1999]: Our management information on those who leave New Deal to claim benefit is only broken down to those who return 274W to Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) and those who claimed another benefit. In the period ending October 1999, of the 251,600 people who left the New Deal for Young People; 23,680 claimed JSA and 30,060 claimed another benefit.