§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which wards and programmes within Sefton have benefited from(a) Connexions, (b) Connexions Summer Plus, (c) Transforming Youth Work Development Fund and (d) Lifelong Learning Partnerships. [124517]
§ Margaret HodgeThe information is as follows:
Connexions
Greater Merseyside Connexions Partnership (which covers the whole of Sefton) opened in September 2001. Connexions offers advice, guidance and access to personal development opportunities for all young people aged 13-19 years old (or up to 25 years old if the young person has a learning difficulty or disability). Since April 2002, significant help has been given on 29,500 occasions to young people in Sefton.
Positive Activities for Young People (previously Connexions Summer Plus)
Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) is a new programme for young people, which provides diversionary activities during school holidays. This 722W programme is being delivered by Greater Merseyside Connexions. In Sefton, 210 full-time places will be provided under PAYP from mid July this year with activities focused or the southern end of the borough.
In addition, a minimum of 60 young people will receive targeted support from key workers to ensure that they join and stay with the programme and return to education, training or employment after the holiday period.
Activities will focus on providing young people with opportunities to help them fulfil their potential, as well as diverting them away from crime. The PAYP scheme will include sport, developing skills as DJs, arts, activities promoting the cultural diversity of the area, and outdoor adventure. These will be available throughout the school holiday periods at times appropriate to meet the needs of young people.
Transforming Youth Work Development Fund
The aim of the TYWDF is to raise the overall quality and quantity of youth work. Sefton has received £48,989 from TYWDF in 2003–04. (This amount adds to the budget provided by the local authority from its education resources).
Sefton Youth Service has used some of this funding to help develop a project called 'Youth Only Zone', working with the police and Leisure services. This project focuses on tackling anti-social behaviour and street crime by young people. It gives youth workers and the police a number of options to offer young people through a range of activities provided in leisure centres. Last year, 500 young people became involved in 'Youth Only Zone' through the Youth Service. Sefton police have also reported a 20 per cent, reduction in calls about juvenile nuisance since the start of the project.
Lifelong Learning Partnerships
Lifelong Learning Partnerships bring together local learning providers (ranging from voluntary sector to Further Education/Higher Education Institutions) and others such as local government, Connexions Service, trade unions, employers and faith groups.
The Partnerships have two core roles; to promote joint working between partners in support of lifelong learning and to maximise the contribution of learning to local regeneration.
From April 2003, funding is routed through the LSC with Sefton Lifelong Learning Partnership receiving £74,512.
§ Mr. HendryTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what has been the total money spent on the Connexions service in each year since it was established; and how many people under the age of 19 have received advice from the service in each of those years. [123568]
§ Margaret Hodge[holding answer 4 July 2003]: The amount spent on the Connexions service in each year since it was established is as follows: 723W
£ million 2000–01 12 2001–02 147 2002–03 377 Note:
These figures exclude the amount spent on funding careers services in those areas where Connexions had not yet been introduced.
Information about the number of young people under the age of 19 receiving advice from Connexions is not collected in the exact format requested. However, the following table shows the number of occasions that young people received assistance in 2001–02 and interventions in 2002–03. Different definitions were used in these two years, reflecting the move away from counting all contacts with young people (referred to as "assistance given") to recording only significant contact on a one-to-one basis (referred to as "interventions").
England April 2001-March 2002 "assistance given"1 1,257,437 April 2002-March 2003 "interventions"2 3,082,926 1 Data relates to 15 Connexions partnerships which were launched before March 2002. 2 Data relates to 46 Connexions partnerships (including the 15 partnerships referred to above) which were operational at some during 2002–03.