To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment, pursuant to her oral statement of 16 January, Official Report, column 610, if she will place in the Library a copy of all correspondence and other data evaluated by her Department relating to the decision to pilot the project work scheme in the Hull and Medway travel-to-work areas. [12156]
[holding answer 26 January 1996]: The information requested is either data about the labour market, which is publicly available, or pre-existing documents. It would not be appropriate specifically to provide this information in the form requested. However, it may be helpful if I explain the way in which the choice of pilot areas was made. Hull and Medway and Maidstone were two of a number of travel-to-work areas of the right size to mount a manageable pilot at a reasonable cost, while still producing a sample large enough for proper evaluation. They were also relatively self-contained, which minimised the potential for distortion, and they represented two different sorts of labour market. The respective rates of unemployment and very long-term unemployment in the two travel-to-work areas is shown in the following table, compared with the national averages.
Pilot area | Unemployment rate Per cent. | VLTU1 as percentage of total unemployed | VLTU2 as percentage of total workforce |
Medway and Maidstone | 8.2 | 13.7 | 1.1 |
Hull | 9.9 | 18.8 | 1.9 |
National average | 8.0 | 21.6 | 1.7 |
1Very long-term unemployed, i.e., over 2 years. | |||
2Seasonally adjusted, and provisional. |