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24 Jun 2009 : Column 976W—continued
Apprentices: Essex
Bob Spink: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many people in (a) Essex and (b) Castle Point commenced level 2 apprenticeships in each of the last five years. [279037]
Kevin Brennan: Table 1 shows the number of Level 2 apprenticeship starts in both Essex local authority and Castle Point parliamentary constituency for each of the last five academic years.
| Table 1: Apprenticeship Starts | |||||
| 2003-04 | 2004-05 | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | |
| Notes: 1. Area is based on learner's home postcode. 2. Figures for parliamentary constituency have been rounded to the nearest 10, figures for local authority have been rounded to the nearest 100. Source: Work-Based Learning ILR | |||||
Apprentices: Local Government
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills pursuant to the answer of 11 May 2009, Official Report, column 599W, on apprentices: local government, how many (a) apprentices and (b) advanced apprentices are employed by each local authority. [278874]
Kevin Brennan: We do not hold centrally data on the number of apprentices employed by each local authority. The Government are committed to developing and expanding apprenticeships in the public sector and earlier this year Cabinet colleagues announced plans for the expansion of the apprenticeships scheme across the public sector. We announced a £140 million package to deliver 35,000 extra places this year of which 21,000 would be in the public sector.
Apprentices: Public Sector
Andrew Gwynne: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many public sector apprenticeships have been started in (a) Stockport and (b) Tameside local authority area since 2005. [279768]
Kevin Brennan: We do not hold centrally data on the number of apprentices employed by each local authority. The Government are committed to developing and expanding apprenticeships in the public sector and earlier this year Cabinet colleagues announced plans for the expansion of the apprenticeships scheme across the public sector. We announced a £140 million package to deliver 35,000 extra places this year of which 21,000 would be in the public sector.
Building Colleges for the Future Programme
Mr. Andrew Smith: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills for what reasons the Learning and Skills Council has not taken decisions on colleges' capital programme in accordance with its originally planned timetable; and if he will make a statement. [279662]
Kevin Brennan [holding answer 17 June 2009]: As set out by the Learning and Skills Council's (LSC) acting chief executive, Geoff Russell, in his letter of 2 June, many more colleges have put forward a case for their projects to be considered as shovel ready than expected, and so unfortunately the LSC was not in a position to ask its June Council to approve individual projects.
Mr. Russell has, however, stated that an announcement will be made by the end of this month as to which projects will go through to the next stage of the prioritisation process.
Mr. Graham Stuart: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what criteria the Learning and Skills Council uses to determine which further education colleges receive funding for building projects from the £300 million capital fund announced in Budget 2009. [280710]
Kevin Brennan: In line with Sir Andrew Foster’s recommendations, the Learning and Skills Council consulted on the best approach to prioritise projects.
The first stage of prioritisation will be ‘readiness’. Projects which pass through the readiness gateway will then be assessed against the other following prioritisation criteria:
Education and skills impact
Contribution to local economic and regeneration priorities
Co-dependency with 3(rd) parties
Condition of estate
Value for money
We expect to announce which projects will be taken forward during this spending review period in the summer.
Education: Procurement
Justine Greening: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what steps his Department has taken to promote the uptake of collaborative procurement strategies within universities and further education colleges, as recommended in HM Treasury’s May 2009 review, Operational Efficiency Programme: collaborative procurement. [279714]
Mr. Lammy: As part of our drive to ensure value for money, we have worked through our key delivery partners to support higher education institutions and further education colleges in delivering greater efficiencies. That includes using consortia at local, regional and national level to procure goods and services collaboratively. This has already been successful over a number of years. Further Education Colleges have already made savings of over £70 million and Higher Education Institutions delivered efficiencies of over £100 million as a result of improvements in procurement. We will continue to promote the benefits of collaborative procurement, while respecting the independence of individual institutions.
Further Education: North Yorkshire
Miss McIntosh: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what assessment he has made of the likely effects on students in North Yorkshire of the recent changes to the budget of the Learning and Skills Council. [278949]
Kevin Brennan:
Students in North Yorkshire and elsewhere have already benefited from the increase in investment for further education of 53 per cent. in real terms since 1997. Recent changes which will affect LSC budgets were announced in Budget 2009. The Budget made available an additional £300 million of further education capital spending and £122 million to support
extra training in England for young people who have been unemployed for 12 months. As part of DCSF-funded activity, there will be £655 million to support over 54,000 more young people to take up a guaranteed place at school or college. As part of Budget 2009, the Government committed to delivering an additional £5 billion of efficiency savings in 2010-11. The then Secretary of State for DIUS wrote to the LSC on 7 May setting out expectations on the contribution to those efficiencies from post-19 further education provision. Taking into account these changes, the LSC will see an estimated overall increase in resources for frontline teaching, learning and learner support services for post-19 learners of around £140 million between 2009-10 and 2010-11. We expect learners in North Yorkshire to benefit from these changes. Funding allocations for 2009-10 post-19 provision are currently being finalised and will be completed later this month.
Gambling: Competition
Mr. Ellwood: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what recent representations he has received from UK leisure and gaming businesses on the (a) level of competition in the online gambling sector in the EU and (b) effects on them of differences between the regulatory systems operated by individual EU member states in relation to online gambling. [280144]
Kevin Brennan: This Department has not received any such recent representations from the UK leisure and gaming businesses.
Higher Education: Cambridgeshire
Mr. Vara: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many students resident in North West Cambridgeshire constituency were in higher education in each of the last 10 years. [281160]
Mr. Lammy: The latest available information from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is shown in the following table. Figures for the 2008/09 academic year will be available in January 2010.
| Enrolments( 1) from North West Cambridgeshire parliamentary constituency( 2) UK higher education institutions—Academic years 1998/99 to 2007/08 | |
| Academic year | North West Cambridgeshire enrolments |
| (1) Covers undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled on full-time and part-time courses. (2) Parliamentary constituency is defined by full and valid home postcodes recorded on the HESA student record. Note: Figures are on a snapshot basis as at 1 December and are rounded to the nearest five. Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) | |
Higher Education: Peterborough
Mr. Stewart Jackson: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many students resident in Peterborough constituency were in higher education in each of the last 10 years. [281670]
Mr. Lammy: The latest available information from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is shown in the table. Figures for the 2008/09 academic year will be available in January 2010.
| Enrolments( 1) from Peterborough parliamentary constituency( 2 ) UK higher education institutions academic years 1998/99 to 2007/08 | |
| Academic year | Peterborough enrolments |
| (1) Covers undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled on full-time and part-time courses. (2) Parliamentary constituency is defined by full and valid home postcodes recorded on the HESA student record. Note: Figures are on a snapshot basis as at 1 December and are rounded to the nearest five. Source: Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). | |
Jaguar Land Rover
Peter Luff: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills when he expects to conclude his discussions with Jaguar Land Rover on loan guarantees from the Automotive Assistance Programme; and if he will make a statement. [280593]
Ian Lucas: The Department is actively pursuing this issue with Jaguar Land Rover’s parent Tata Motors as a priority with a view to reaching a conclusion as soon as possible.
Learning and Skills Council: Consultants
Bob Spink: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much the Learning and Skills Council has spent on consultants in each of the last five years. [279381]
Kevin Brennan: The Department does not hold this level of information. The Learning and Skills Council makes decisions about the employment of consultants based upon its own business needs. Geoff Russell, the Council’s acting chief executive, will write to the hon. Gentleman with further information. A copy of his reply will be placed in the Libraries of the House.
Learning and Skills Council: Finance
Justine Greening: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what criteria are used by the Learning and Skills Council to allocate funding to local authorities. [280168]
Kevin Brennan: Where local authorities are providers in their own right, they will receive a funding allocation from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) to deliver provision in line with funding allocated to all other providers.
Funding allocations for adult learner responsive (ALR) and employer responsive (ER) provision are calculated according to a national funding formula. This formula calculates funding using the volume of learning that the provider delivers at an agreed national funding rate. The formula also takes account of factors specific to the provider—such as the curriculum that it offers, and the proportion of students coming from areas of disadvantage.
Local authorities deliver the majority of the £210 million that is safeguarded annually for informal adult learning. This learning is not formula-funded, but is commissioned through a negotiated process with each local authority. It is a block grant to deliver an agreed volume of provision. The LSC uses final outturn data returns for previous years and in-year estimate data in order to agree learner numbers to be funded for the following year.
Justine Greening: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (1) how much funding was allocated to local authorities through the Learning and Skills Council as part of the most recent Comprehensive Spending Review over the period of the review; [280169]
(2) how much funding has been allocated to local authorities through the Learning and Skills Council for (a) 2007-08, (b) 2008-09 and (c) 2009-10. [280170]
Kevin Brennan: The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) allocates funding to learning providers—including school sixth forms, FE colleges, independent providers and local authorities—where those providers are approved to deliver publicly-funded further education and skills for learners aged 16 or over. Funding is allocated in respect of an academic year, but the actual amounts paid will depend on demand from individuals and employers.
Funding allocations data for all LSC-funded providers are available on the LSC website:
These data show that in 2007/08 academic year, over £410 million was allocated to local authorities; the allocation in 2008/09 was over £370 million. Allocations for 2009/10 are still being finalised.
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