---

Education Maintenance Allowance

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. It is an important topic that has affected many learners up and down the country. As he said, the experience has been wholly unsatisfactory. The Government are committed to giving every young person the best possible standard of education, to bring out their talents and give them the skills for a prosperous and satisfying career. To achieve that ambition, we are committed to removing all barriers that hold people back from success. That is why we introduced the education maintenance allowance in the first place—to ensure that financial constraints are not a barrier to learning—and it has had some success. Evaluation of the initial EMA pilots showed that the scheme led to increases in participation of 3.8 per cent. for 16-year-olds and 4.1 per cent. for 17-year-olds. That is why I am so deeply disappointed with the recent delays in getting grants out to students, and I can well understand their frustrations and the frustrations of my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Prentice) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith). Throughout this period, our first priority has been learners and ensuring that systems are put in place to process payments as quickly as possible. Paying the remaining grants continues to be my top priority. Since the beginning of September, I have received daily delivery statistics from the LSC, based on information provided by its contractor, Liberata. Last week, I wrote to the Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) and laid a written ministerial statement outlining progress and next steps, based on the information provided to me by the LSC, which was in turn provided to it by Liberata. However, during the LSC’s work to migrate the contract and systems, it found that the method used by Liberata to calculate work in progress was not sufficiently accurate. I was informed yesterday evening by the LSC that the recent figure for outstanding applications provided by the LSC and cited in my letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield dated 19 November and repeated in my written ministerial statement to the House is not correct. I am grateful for the opportunity to correct that now. A physical count by Liberata recorded approximately 26,200 applications that are in the process of being finalised as of 21 November—not 12,016, as stated in my letter to my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield. That is unacceptable, but we are continuing to make progress. I am advised that 6,000 applications are being processed per day, with a net reduction of 3,000 per day. We expect the backlog of applications to be all but cleared in the next three weeks. I have written to the Chairman of the Children, Schools and Families Committee today to clarify the position. I wish to put those revised figures on the record now. I have also written to the chief executive of the LSC—much mentioned this afternoon—asking for a full explanation why its contract monitoring did not reveal the problem sooner, and seeking reassurance that the new contract management arrangements that it is putting in place will avoid such problems in the future. I have asked it to review other figures and processes, to ensure that the figures that it provides me with are robust and accurate.