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Dept for Education and Employment

Answer

Mr. Congdon: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what progress she has made on extending the project work pilots; and if she will make a statement. [9272] Mrs. Gillian Shephard: In November I announced my plans to extend the project work approach to 28 new pilot areas across the country covering up to 100,000 people, and to test a number of variations on the basic model. A list of the locations and start dates of the new pilots is contained in the following table. We will be piloting variations to the approach used in Hull and Medway and Maidstone to see if we can improve its effectiveness. There will be an emphasis on literacy and numeracy in all the new pilots. Up to 10,000 people will have access to intensive help with literacy and numeracy. A further 9,000 people will be covered by pilots where we will be seeking increased involvement of the private sector. In pilots covering around 14,000 people, workstart will be replaced by jobmatch as an additional programme available to people in the pilot. Jobmatch offers grants to people who take part-time jobs as a stepping stone into full-time work. The results from the jobmatch pilots currently running have been encouraging, and we want to see whether jobmatch is a more cost-effective addition to the help available to project work participants than workstart. We will also test the added value of workstart by removing it altogether in some pilots. In other pilots we will be varying the length of the initial period of jobsearch help for around 13,000 people. Through these pilots, we will provide a package of specialist help and advice for people who have been out of work for a long time and face significant disadvantages. I believe that these pilots are an innovative and useful addition to the help that we already provide for unemployed people. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Type of pilot Starting date locations piloting this type Basic model February 1997 Dudley and Sandwell Nottingham Bristol Bath Weston-super-Mare North East London Derby Hull Medway and Maidstone Intensive literacy and numeracy help April 1997 Bradford Huddersfield Norwich Dundee Stoke Increased private sector involvement April 1997 Hertford and Harlow Peterborough Edinburgh Portsmouth Differences in length and content of the February 1997 (full range of ES help Bolton and Bury Swansea Neath and Port intensive help prior to mandatory work excluding Workstart) Talbot Merthyr and Rhymney Preston experience Lanarkshire Variation including Jobmatch February 1997 (full range of ES help East London Wigan and St. Helens including Jobmatch) Variation with period A shortened to 8 weeks April 1997 (8 week period of intensive Brighton South Tyneside help) Variation with period A shortened to 4 weeks April 1997 (4 week period of intensive Leicester Grimsby Dunfermline help) _________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

287 c315-6W; 9272

Session

1996-97

Subjects

Employment Private sector Employment schemes Part-time employment Literacy Take-up Workstart Jobclubs Numeracy Project Work

Contains statistics

Yes