Nortel Networks, Paignton (Hansard, 23 March 2001)

§ Ms Jowell

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 Richard Foster to Mr. Adrian Sanders, dated 20 March 2001:

As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked Leigh Lewis to reply to your question

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available. Due to boundary changes, expenditure for 2000–01 on DfEE Mainstream programmes and the New Deals are not comparable.

Doncaster TEC. The TECs' figures for Strategic activity/Discretionary Projects may include expenditure other than training.

concerning what extra resources will be made available to the South Devon Employment Service as a consequence of the redundancies announced by Nortel Networks. This is something which falls within the responsibilities delegated to Mr. Lewis as Chief Executive of the Agency. I am replying on Mr. Lewis' behalf.

In answer to your specific question, all the local agencies, including the Employment Service, the Regional Development Agency and the Government Office are working closely with Nortel to establish the specific help that is needed by the employees. Following a meeting held on 23 February these agencies are in the process of preparing a bid for additional funding via the Rapid Response Fund. By way of background the Rapid Response Fund is held centrally by the Department for Education and Employment and was set up by the Government in 1998. The specific purpose of the Fund is to provide the additional resources necessary to support Large Sale Redundancies in situations such as this.

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In the longer term the Employment Service may also be able to offer additional support to Nortel employees through the Job Transition Programme. This service is being developed from April to assist employees facing redundancy and is intended to supplement the help available under the Rapid Response Fund.

May I take this opportunity to assure you that the Employment Service in South Devon will continue to work with Nortel to provide every assistance to the company and their employees.

I hope this is helpful.