Written question asked by Tim Loughton (Conservative) on Thursday, 19 October 2006, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 23 October 2006. It was answered by Phil Woolas (Labour) on Tuesday, 31 October 2006 on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Social Exclusion Unit

Question: To ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster pursuant to the answer of 9 October 2006, Official Report, column 99W, on the social exclusion unit, what evaluation has been carried out of the work carried out by the former social exclusion unit over its lifetime.

Answer: I have been asked to reply.The Social Exclusion Unit was set up in 1997 on a time-limited basis and was reviewed in 1999. This review was conducted by a small group of key stakeholders from inside and outside Government and chaired by the Head of the Economic and Domestic Secretariat within the Cabinet Office. The review concluded that the Unit had been a success and should continue until at least 2002.In 2004 the SEU carried out a major stocktake of the Government's approach to tackling social exclusion—published in the report, ““Breaking the Cycle””. This brought together evidence from a range of national data sources, evaluation literature and the perspectives of service providers and users, and highlighted progress made by the Government's approach and remaining challenges.

Secondary information