Individual Learning Accounts (Hansard, 24 April 2002)

§ Mr. Chaytor
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she will, subject to the agreement of Capita and following the deletion of commercially confidential information, place a copy of the contract for the delivery of individual learning accounts in the Library. [37273]

§ John Healey
[holding answer 26 February 2002]: I have placed a copy of the contract between the Department and Capita Business Services Ltd. in the Library. Commercially confidential information has been removed from the version available to Members.

§ Mr. Andrew Turner
To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills at what target groups the ILA scheme was aimed; and what steps were taken by her Department to ensure the scheme assisted those target groups. [49882]

§ John Healey
[holding answer 15 April 2002]: Anyone aged 19 or over was able to open an individual learning account. Within the universal offer ILAs were targeted toward four key groups—young people aged 19–30 with few or no skills or qualifications, women returning to the labour market, the self-employed and non-teaching school staff. An advertising campaign between October and December 2000 concentrated on two of these groups—young people aged 19–30 with few or no qualifications and women returning to the labour market. The campaign used local and commercial radio and was supported by national and regional newspapers.
In addition, further steps were taken to ensure the programme reached those in the target groups. The Department targeted self-employed/owner mangers through the small firm learning account (SFLA) pilot project. Over 200 small businesses actively participated in the pilot and 1,242 employees opened an ILA. From January 2001, the Department funded five ILA community projects in Liverpool, Sheffield, Kent and London and 3,279 accounts were opened. These projects placed particular emphasis on targeting hard to reach groups and the pilots were successful in engaging black and ethnic minority groups and people with no existing qualifications. The Department also worked with the TUC to engage groups of learners that were traditionally hard to reach through the Union Learning Fund and Learning Representatives. 79 per cent. of TUC ILA users were from priority groups, least likely to participate in learning.