To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions how much he expects his Department to pay to private and voluntary sector organisations to deliver services under the Helping People into Work strategy. (191926)

Our recently published “Three Year Business Plan 2008-11”, which is available in the Library, provides figures for planned expenditure on employment programmes. These figures are in the following table.

We anticipate that up to 70 per cent. of this expenditure will be contracted to voluntary and private sector organisations. However, as indicated within our recently published commissioning strategy, which is also available in the Library, the exact amounts are yet to be approved by Ministers.