Examination of Witnesses (Questions 380-383)
MR BILL
WELLS AND
MR JEREMY
GROOMBRIDGE
17 OCTOBER 2006
Q380 Lyn Brown: I understand the
need for national statistics and I think the Labour Force Survey
is a good one, so I am not trying to undermine the evidence that
you have given us, but what I am trying to understand is whether
or not you feel that you have been able to give us the answers
as correctly as possible, given that it is only the Labour Force
Survey upon which you have been able to rely, and that there is
nothing you have been able to give us that enables us to dig deeper
underneath the statistics that you have provided us with from
the Labour Force Survey.
Mr Wells: I think the answer to
that is yes, because although we have used the Labour Force Survey
for a particular set of descriptions on this we have also used
the surveys of employers for the tourism jobs and the benefits
information for benefits, and the information on the national
insurance. It makes it a little fuzzy at the edges but I think
that the overall picture is consistent, using all of those sources.
Q381 Anne Main: On the point of migrant
workers, from which we have moved from, I would like to know what
your definition of a migrant worker is, particularly to make sure
we are all talking about the same thing, and it says that you
believe 400 jobs have disappeared from their books because directors
are now directly hiring migrant workers. What evidence do you
have of that?
Mr Wells: Again, these were in
different sources. In terms of national insurance numbers the
definition of people from abroad, and the information that I gave
you in terms of some of the areas had more people born abroad,
who asked for a national insurance number, is one source. In terms
of the local evidence, again JobCentre Plus—and I will let
Jeremy speak—is literally that they deal with employers
and the employers are getting in touch with other agencies and
setting up different recruitment terms.
Q382 Anne Main: Are you saying then
that the employers who work with JobCentre Plus are removing themselves
off their books because you believe they are going elsewhere for
their workers; is that what you are saying?
Mr Wells: We would rather that
they stayed with JobCentre Plus so that more of the clients of
JobCentre Plus would use them and reduce the numbers on benefits,
but there are examples which JobCentre Plus has of employers who
used to recruit through JobCentre Plus but who now recruit elsewhere.
Anne Main: That is what I said, but I
just wondered where you got your figures from of 400 jobs disappearing.
Chair: Southport JobCentre Plus, who
have said that.
Anne Main: That is what I am saying.
I just wondered if there is anything to support this, if it is
nationally rolled out?
Q383 Chair: I think you have to take
it that it is Southport who said those figures and presumably
you might have anecdotes from elsewhere?
Mr Groombridge: I am not familiar
with the specific figures around Southport, but certainly in the
world in which we operate there are obviously other agencies that
can help move people into jobs, and indeed we have a shared objective
in that sense. But there are certainly instances where employers
will use the services of other agencies in preference to JobCentre
Plus, and that is the world we work in.
Chair: Thank you very much indeed. We
now move on to the Environment Agency.
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