§ Mr. BreedTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what proportion of young people who received an educational maintenance allowance in each year since 1999 were identified as rural. [67085]
§ Margaret Hodge[holding answer 5 JUly 2002]We do not ask the local education authorities or schools and colleges who administer the EMA scheme to classify individual recipients as "urban" or "rural".
However, of the 56 LEA areas in which EMA is paid, six are identified as predominantly rural in character: Cornwall, East Lancashire, Northumberland, North East Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Worcestershire. Cornwall was the only LEA from this list to receive an EMA in 1999–2000, when there were only 15 pilot areas. The following figures show EMA recipients in these areas as a percentage of the total number of EMA recipients in each of the academic years during which we have run the pilots.
Academic year Percentage of EMA recipients in predominantly rural areas 1999–2000 31.3 2000–01 15.3 2001–02 14.0