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Education Maintenance Allowance

Answer

The first part of question 41530 and question 41531 are matters for the Learning and Skills Council. Mark Haysom, the Council's Chief Executive, will write to my hon. Friend with the information requested and a copy of his reply has been placed in the House Library.Regarding the impact of EMA, I refer my hon. Friend to the answer I have given to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) on 16 January 2006, Official Report, column 1015W.Letter from Mark Haysom, dated 30 January 2006:"I am writing in response to your Parliamentary Questions that asked ““how many people received education maintenance allowances in each year since the inception of the scheme in (a) Stroud constituency, (b) Gloucestershire and (c) England?; and how many people (a) were eligible for and (b) took up education maintenance allowances in (i) Stroud constituency, (ii) Gloucestershire and (iii) England, in the last year for which figures are available?””.""Information on the number of young people who have applied for, enrolled and received EMA is available at local education authority level, but not at constituency level. The information relates to the academic years.""EMA was piloted in 56 areas before launching the national scheme. Gloucestershire local education authority was not a pilot area. EMA was rolled-out nationally in the academic year 2004/05. In this year, EMA was available to all 16-years-olds nationally and to 17 and 18-years-olds in former pilot areas (young people who are 19 are entitled to receive EMA in certain circumstances).""The following table displays data for Gloucestershire local education authority area and England."

	Number of young people receiving at least one EMApayment
Area	2001/02 (Pilot)	2002/03 (Pilot)	2003/04 (Pilot)	2004/05 (National)
Gloucestershire		n/a	n/a	n/a	2,125
England	127,900	125,600	115,800	297,500
(51) No data is available prior to 2001/02. For 2001/02–2003/04, no data is available for Sunderland, East Lancashire or Suffolk. Therefore, figures for England (pilot areas) are approximate only.

"In preparation for the national roll-out, projections of the number of young people eligible for EMA were only made for 16-years-olds. The projections are formed by applying income distributions (derived from the Family Resources Survey) and expected numbers in full-time further education to the estimated population of 16-years-olds. When applied to individual localities the figures may be subject to some variation but they provide a useful estimate.""The following table displays the data for Gloucestershire local education authority area and England."

	Take-up of EMA by 16-years-olds in 2004/05
Area	Projected number eligible	Actualtake-up	Percentage take-up
Gloucestershire	2,210	2,125	96.15
England	266,000	217,360	81.71

"I hope this information is helpful and addresses your question. If you would like further details please contact Chris Bradley at the LSC National Office on 0114 207 4512 or Christopher. Bradley@lsc.gov.uk"

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

41530; 442 c1002-3W;442 c1002-3W

Session

2005-06

Related items

Deposited Paper HINF 2006/298
Monday, 30 January 2006
Deposited papers
House of Commons

Post-16 Education
Monday, 16 January 2006
Written questions
House of Commons

Subjects

Education Education maintenance allowance Young people Gloucestershire Stroud

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk