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20 July 2009 : Column 1136W—continued
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many and what percentage of people aged between 18 and 24 years were not in education, employment or training in the first quarter of each year since 2000. [284312]
Kevin Brennan [holding answer 14 July 2009]: The following table shows the number and percentage of people aged(1) 18 to 24 not in education, employment or training (NEET) in England. These estimates are from the Quarter 1 Labour Force Survey (LFS).
NEET estimates are not available from LFS datasets prior to Quarter 2 2000 due to incomplete data.
| 18 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training | ||
| Quarter 1 | NEET | Percentage |
| (1 )Age used is academic age, which is the respondents' age at the preceding 31 August. Base: 18 to 24-year-olds, England Source: Q1 Labour Force Survey | ||
Mr. Willetts: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many and what percentage of 16 to 24 year olds were not in education, employment or training in the second quarter of each year since 1997. [284954]
Kevin Brennan [holding answer 16 July 2009]: The following table shows the number and percentage of people aged(1) 16 to 24 not in education, employment or training (NEET) in England. These estimates are from the Quarter 2 Labour Force Survey (LFS).
NEET estimates are not available from LFS datasets prior to Quarter 2 2000 due to incomplete data. Quarter 2 2009 data are due to be published by DCSF on 18 August.
| 16 to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training | ||
| Q uarter 2 | NEET | Percentage |
| (1) Age used is academic age, which is the respondents' age at the preceding 31 August. Base: 16 to 24-year-olds, England Source: Q2 Labour Force Survey | ||
Vocational Training
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what steps his Department is taking to encourage employers to increase skills levels among their employees. [284623]
Kevin Brennan: It is now even more important that we give employers the real help they need to invest in training for their staff so that they can survive the economic downturn and emerge to take advantage of new opportunities when the upturn comes.
Train to Gain is a service for employers which gives them access to a wider range of opportunities for improving the skills of their employees and the productivity of their business. Through Train to Gain employers can access:
A brokerage service to help identify the business' skills needs at all levels and source high quality, vocational skills training, including apprenticeships, delivered at a time and place to suit the business.
Government funding for skills training to sit alongside their own financial contribution. This includes a subsidy of up to 100 per cent. for literacy and numeracy and first full level 2 qualifications, and a fully funded offer for 19 to 25-year-olds up to level 3.
A flexible offer, responsive to and tailored to sector-based variations through sector compacts, and with relaxed funding rules for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Government are increasing investment in Train to Gain to over £1 billion by 2010-11. Since its launch in 2006, Train to Gain has engaged with 143,000 employers and helped 1.25 million people to start training.
Funding for apprenticeships has increased by almost a quarter since 2007/08 with just over £1 billion available in 2009-10. In January this year, the Prime Minister announced a package for an additional 35,000 apprenticeship places in 2009-10. The number of people starting apprenticeships has increased from 65,000 in 1996/97 to 225,000 in 2007/08.
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills if he will make an estimate of the cost to the public purse of providing 40 per cent. of the workforce with the opportunity to attain a level 4 qualification by 2020. [284625]
Kevin Brennan: It is not possible to build a meaningful estimate of the long-term costs of this goal, given the time span in question and the fact that we do not know the outcome of the 2009 Fees Commission.
Latest labour force survey data shows that just over 31 per cent. of the working age population are qualified to level 4 or above-a generally upward trend from about 25 per cent. eight years ago. We are on target to achieve 40 per cent. by 2020.
Vocational Training: Finance
Mrs. Gillan: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much his Department plans to spend on skills funding in (a) England and (b) Wales in 2009-10. [285561]
Kevin Brennan: Planned expenditure by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills on adult further education (FE) and skills for 2009-10 in England is £5.2 billion. The Department is not responsible for further education and skills in Wales, which is devolved to the Welsh Assembly Government.
Vocational Training: Trade Unions
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what steps his Department is taking to involve trade unions in initiatives to increase skills levels. [284622]
Kevin Brennan: Trade unions are making a key contribution to our efforts to raise skill levels in the workplace. Unions and their union learning representatives (ULRs) are uniquely placed to engage with those hard to reach workers with few skills or low confidence in their own ability who employers find it so difficult to reach. To help them do this, we introduced the Union Learning Fund (ULF) in 1998 and will be providing £21.5 million to support this budget in 2009-10.
With the help of ULF, unions and their ULRs have now helped over 800,000 people into learning through a wide range of innovative partnership projects with employers to tackle both organisational and individual skill needs. In 2006, with the Government's support, the TUC established 'unionlearn' to provide additional support and training for ULRs and to maximise the trade union contribution to our efforts to improve work force skills at all levels.
Over 22,000 union learning reps have now been trained and are playing a vital role in helping to combat the economic downturn by providing workers at risk of or facing redundancy with advice and guidance about the wide range of support available to help them improve their skills and employment prospects.
Voluntary Work
Mr. Sanders: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills if he will assess (a) the prevalence of unpaid work in the public and private sectors and (b) the effect of such work on the economy. [285426]
Angela E. Smith: I have been asked to reply.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, July 2009:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking (a) the prevalence of unpaid work in the public and private sectors and (b) the effect of such work on the economy. (285426)
Estimates of the number of people doing unpaid work and the amount of unpaid work they do are available from the Labour Force Survey (LFS). They relate to the number of people in paid employment whose working week includes unpaid overtime, and those people who are unpaid family workers. The attached table
provides detail on unpaid work in the public and private sector in terms of number of people, and hours worked, for the latest data available relating to Quarter 1 2009.
Estimates of the effect of unpaid work on the economy are not available. However, the proportion of these unpaid workers and the hours worked as a percentage of total employment are included to give an indication of the prevalence of this in the labour market.
The estimates are derived from the LFS microdata which are weighted using the official population estimates published in autumn 2007. They are not entirely consistent with the figures published in the monthly Labour Market Statistics Statistical Bulletin, which are weighted using more up-to-date population estimates. As with any sample survey, estimates from the LFS are subject to a margin of uncertainty.
| Unpaid work in the public and private sector( 1) , ( 2) : Quarter 1, 2009 United Kingdom: Not seasonally adjusted | |||||||||
| Private sector | Public sector | Total( 1) | |||||||
| Number (thousand) | Total usual weekly hours (million) | Average usual weekly hours (per person | Number (thousand) | Total usual weekly hours (million) | Average usual weekly hours (per person | Number (thousand) | Total usual weekly hours (million) | Average usual weekly hours (per person | |
| n/a = Not applicable. (1 )Includes those who did not state whether they worked in the public or private sector. (2) Coefficients of Variation have been calculated for the latest period as an indication of the quality of the estimates. See Guide to Quality below. Guide to Quality: The Coefficient of Variation (CV) indicates the quality of an estimate, the smaller the CV value the higher the quality. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV-for example, for an estimate of 200 with a CV of 5 per cent. we would expect the population total to be within the range 180-220 Key Coefficient of Variation (CV) (%) Statistical Robustness * 0 ≤ CV<5 Estimates are considered precise ** 5 ≤ CV <10 Estimates are considered reasonably precise *** 10 ≤ CV <20 Estimates are considered acceptable **** CV ≥ 20 Estimates are considered too unreliable for practical purposes Source: Annual Population Survey and Annual Labour Force Survey | |||||||||
It should be noted that the above estimates exclude people In most types of communal establishment (e.g. hotels, boarding houses, hostels mobile home sites etc.)
York College: Finance
Hugh Bayley: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what budget his Department has provided for York College in (a) cash and (b) real terms in each year since 2004. [285699]
Kevin Brennan: Funding for post-16 further education (FE) and skills in England is allocated to FE colleges and providers by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). The following table shows the funding that has been allocated to York College by the LSC, for both young people and adults, in each of the years requested, alongside the corresponding real terms value of these allocations:
| £ | ||
| Cash allocation( 1) | Real terms( 2) | |
| (1 )LSC allocations data 2 These figures have been calculated using the Gross Domestic Product deflators correct as at 30 June 2009 | ||
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