HC Deb 16 October 2002 vol 390 cc873-4W
Mr. Boswell

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills how many educational maintenance allowances are available; and at what annual cost. [74631]

Margaret Hodge

[holding answer 15 October 2002]Education Maintenance Allowances are available to all those young people who are resident in a pilot area, who meet the relevant eligibility criteria for that particular pilot and who meet the conditions of their Learning Agreement. The actual amount the young person receives also depends on the particular variant being piloted in their area. Take-up of EMA varies from one LEA area to another depending on the variant being tested and on the level of marketing carried out by the LEA and other local partners. In the last academic year over 120,000 young people benefited from EMA across all pilot areas. This figure will increase again this year when the pilot scheme reaches steady state with two cohorts of young people in all 56 areas. The cost of the scheme, including evaluation and other related pilot activity, was slightly over £99 million for the last financial year.

Mr. Boswell

To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if she has completed evaluation of the pilot education maintenance allowances. [74630]

Margaret Hodge

[holding answer 15 October 2002]The evaluation of the EMA pilots began in Spring 1999 and is scheduled for completion next year. The evaluation was designed with two purposes. The first was to determine how effective an EMA approach was in increasing participation, retention and achievement amongst young people from low-income families. The second was to provide evidence on the most effective aspects of the various models being tested.

Evidence from the first two years of the pilots shows that EMAs increased participation in full-time education in Year 12 by 5.9 percentage points among eligible young people. The participation gain was further increased to 7.3 percentage points in Year 13. On this basis we decided to extend EMAs nationally from September 2004. We are now looking to further evidence to inform the development of the most effective model for national implementation.