§ Mr. ClappisonTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) how many Jobcentres have had electronic jobpoints fitted; how many jobs are accessible through this service; and what assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the service in placing people in employment; [11260]
(2) how much has been spent on the development and installation of jobpoint kiosks in Jobcentres across the country. [11255]
§ Mr. Nicholas BrownSince the first jobpoints were installed, a little over nine months ago, over 650 offices have been equipped with almost 6,200 machines. By February 2002, when all 1,000 Jobcentres will have been fitted with a total of 9,000 jobpoints it will be the largest managed network in the world of this sort of terminal.
The Employment Service typically handles around 400,000 vacancies at any one time and these can be searched on jobpoints by job type, location, hours or other factors. In addition, there are usually more than 10,000 vacancies from other public employment services in the European Economic Area and around 1,500 which are being displayed by a small number of private agencies and recruiters as part of an experiment.
Jobpoints are part of an extensive programme of modernisation of the Employment Service, which also includes vacancies taken through a single national telephone number, an internet job bank and new job matching tools for staff. It is not possible to separate the cost of jobpoints from other elements of the modernisation programme because of the interdependencies within it. As we have said before in a press release dated 31 October 2000 the work is being carried out through an eight year contract with Electronic Data Systems. The first phase of this, which included the jobpoints, is at a total of £470 million. However, a substantial part of these costs will be offset through efficiency savings derived from the whole of the programme.
Evidence from an early evaluation of the Jobpoint Pathfinder offices is available in the House of Commons Library. It shows that the use of jobpoints is encouraging jobseekers to look at a larger range of jobs across wider geographical areas. Jobseekers are finding the machines easy to use and that they improve the effectiveness of their job searching. Evidence is emerging that people are applying for more jobs, and this should increase their prospects of moving from benefits to work, and doing so more quickly.
The effectiveness of jobpoints is currently being further assessed as part of a wider evaluation of the Modernising Employment Service (MES) Programme. Results from the first year of the evaluation will be published in 2002 with final results in 2003.