To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many staff of industrial training boards in existence at the time of the White Paper "Employment for the 1990s" have since then been made redundant; and how many of those made redundant were training staff as opposed to administrative and support staff.

On the best available figures, approximately 3,100 staff were previously employed by the seven industrial training boards at the beginning of 1989. Since 5 December 1988, a total of 739 staff have been made redundant for a variety of reasons, including operational efficiency, cessation of statutory duties and changes to the operation of youth training managing agencies. Of these, 370 were training staff. During the same period a number of boards have recruited about 300 new staff, the majority of whom were training staff.

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment how many statutory training boards will remain after 31 July; and how many staff they will employ.

From 31 July 1991, three industrial training boards will remain operational, employing a total of 1,550 staff.

To ask the Secretary of State for Employment what is the current number of industrial training boards.

Three industrial training boards are currently operational.