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Education Maintenance Allowance

Thank you, Mrs. Winterton. You say that I have been successful in securing this debate, but I have been somewhat overtaken by events. I raised the issue of education maintenance allowances last Wednesday with the Prime Minister, and when I put in for the debate I intended to call for the company responsible for administering EMAs to be sacked because of its incompetence. However, the Learning and Skills Council, with the approval of the Minister for Schools and Learners, has done that job for me. Nevertheless, I want to take the time available to me to talk about the lessons that might be learned from this fiasco. Central Departments increasingly turn to the private sector and third sector partners to deliver important state services. Last year, I think the amount involved was about £79 billion, so we are talking about big business. Sometimes—too often, I think—things go wrong. Only a few months ago, we learned that the American firm ETS Europe, which lost the standard assessment tests contract, was worth £156 million over five years. The contract for delivering EMAs amounted to £80 million, so we are talking about huge sums of public money. The EMAs are means-tested allowances of up to £30 a week paid to 16 to 19-year-olds to encourage them to stay on in education. They are really an incentive for young people to stay at college and stay in education who might otherwise go out to work because their families are not particularly well off, so the thinking behind EMAs is laudable. It was a marvellous policy initiative but unfortunately it has not been delivered well. There have been huge delays in getting the money to the students and that has had a huge impact on those young people, who rely on the EMA to pay for transport, lunches and other things that young people buy.