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Dept for Education and Employment;Employment Service

Answer

Mr. Rooney: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many claimants have been referred to project work in each quarter since April 1996; and how many of these have had their benefit cut for (i) two weeks and (ii) four weeks for failure to attend or complete their work placement. [21519] Mr. Alan Howarth: [holding answer 18 December 1997]: Responsibility for the subject of the question has been delegated to the Employment Service agency under it's Chief Executive. I have asked him to arrange for a reply to be given. Letter from Leigh Lewis to Mr. Terry Rooney, dated 13 January 1998. As the Employment Service is an Executive Agency, the Secretary of State has asked me to reply to your question about the number of individuals referred to Project Work in each quarter since April 1996; and how many of these have had their benefit cut for (i) two weeks and (ii) four weeks, for failure to attend or complete their work placement. This is something that falls within the responsibilities delegated to me as Chief Executive of the Agency. I would like to apologise to you for the delay in supplying the information you have asked for. Unfortunately, information is not available in precisely the format you have requested. Statistics on referrals to the work experience element of Project Work--as opposed to starts on this element of the programme--were not collected for the original pilots in Hull and Medway and Maidstone which began in April 1996, and it is not now possible to collect this information retrospectively However, the figures in Table 1 set out the number of starts on the work experience element of Project Work and the number of cases referred for adjudication for refusal and failure to attend Project Work in the two pilot areas. The figures do not include people who left the register between being referred to the work experience element of Project Work and their planned date of starting. The first referrals to the work experience element of Project Work were not made until 22 July 1996. Table 1 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Quarter ending Number of jobseekers who started project Number of jobseekers referred to work adjudication September 1996 658 44 December 1996 1,315 229 March 1997 1,152 223 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Statistics on referrals to the work experience element of Project Work were collected for the extended pilots and I am therefore able to supply you with the number of people referred to the work experience element of Project Work from 1 April 1997. This information is contained in Table 2 below. Although the extended pilots started in February 1997 referrals to the work experience element in these areas did not begin until July 1997. The figures in Table 2 for the June quarter relate, therefore, only to Hull and Medway and Maidstone where Project Work was already in operation. Table 2 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Quarter ending Number of Jobseekers who were referred to Project Work June 1997 1,482 September 1997 13,727 December 1997 15,726 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. [Continued in column 177]

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

21519; 304 c177-8W

Session

1997-98

Subjects

Decreases Employment schemes Recipients Social security benefits Project Work

Contains statistics

Yes