To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment how many employment zones have been established to date; and what assessment he has made of their effectiveness. [76434]

To date, five prototype Employment Zones have been established in Glasgow, Liverpool and Sefton, North-West Wales, Plymouth and South Tees. Three smaller projects are also underway in Birmingham and Solihull, Wembley and Doncaster and Wakefield.The effectiveness of the prototypes is constantly being reviewed and evaluated. A qualitative evaluation is being undertaken jointly by Manchester and Leeds Metropolitan Universities and a quantitative survey is planned to run from May 1999 to June 1999. The outcome of the evaluation will be published at the end of the year.The lessons learned from the prototypes will feed into the framework for fully fledged Employment Zones, which will run on the personal job account model from April 2000.