(AQW 1657/01)

The Minister for Employment and Learning (Ms Hanna): I refer the Member to my answer to AQW 1195/01.

(AQW 1805/01)

Ms Hanna: Research on student income and expenditure informed the Department’s review of student support in 2001. The impact of the changes emerging from the review will be evaluated in due course.

(AQW 1838/01)

Ms Hanna: Students are advised of their statutory maximum loan entitlement determined in accordance with the Education (Student Support) Regulations (Northern Ireland). It is a matter of personal choice for students to decide how much they need to borrow. It would not be appropriate for my Department to seek to influence them.

(AQW 1839/01)

Ms Hanna: (a) My Department’s underspend against its Departmental Expenditure Limit budget in 2000-01 was £17.8m. This excludes New Deal funding which until 1 April 2001 was ring fenced and managed separately outside the Departmental Limit control. Any unneeded New Deal funding was not available for reallocation to other purposes in this or other departments; it was carried forward to the subsequent year or surrendered to Treasury.

(b) Of the £17.8m, the largest element of £7.9m was due to the gap between the end of the old and the start of new European programmes and £2·4m was in respect of capital expenditure which was allocated back to the Department for the current year under end-year flexibility arrangements. The Building Sustainable Prosperity European Programme has commenced. Other relevant budgets have been reduced for future years and will be revisited as part of the Spending Review. These circumstances should prevent a recurrence.

(AQW 1851/01)

Ms Hanna: There is no Centre for Molecular Bio-science at Queen’s University, Belfast. However, work has commenced on a new Centre for Molecular Biosciences (CMB) at the University of Ulster’s Coleraine campus. The CMB is being taken forward under the Support Programme for University Research (SPUR), a public-private partnership designed to enhance the level of research of international standing in Northern Ireland.

The CMB received the largest award, £14.5 million. DEL will contribute 50% of the costs, matching pound for pound contributions raised privately by the University.

(AQW 1866/01)

Ms Hanna: The most recent data available to the Department covers the academic year 2000/01. The following table details the number of students enrolled on catering and hospitality related courses at each campus:

Enrolments on catering and institutional management courses at the university of ulster, 2000/01

(AQW 1919/01)

Ms Hanna: The Jobcentres provide a range of personal advice and employment services to unemployed jobseekers including job brokerage, careers guidance and opportunities in programmes such as New Deal. In the context of the Government’s welfare reforms agenda, the Department’s priority has shifted to helping unemployed people in receipt of welfare benefits.

(AQW 1922/01)

Ms Hanna: A review of the New Deal for 18 to 24-year-olds is currently underway. The review, which will take into account employers needs, follows recently published evaluation studies on New Deal and a wide ranging consultation exercise. Proposals will be finalised by March 2002 and implemented during 2002/03.

(AQW 1923/01)

Ms Hanna: My Department has a specialist Disablement Advisory Service which assists people with disabilities to gain employment. Assistance includes employment advice, access to appropriate training, help with job placements and financial assistance. New Deal for Disabled People is available to people on health related benefits. The Department’s Careers Service provides career guidance to people with disabilities who are in education, training or unemployment.

(AQW 1929/01)

Ms Hanna: Since the introduction in 1998 of the self-employment route within New Deal 766 unemployed people have availed of this facility. Of these 343 registered a fresh claim to benefit within 13 weeks of completion.

(AQW 1930/01)

Ms Hanna: The New Deal for Lone Parents, introduced by the Department for Social Development in October 1998, provides advice and assistance to lone parents seeking work or training. As part of this initiative my Department’s Jobcentre network provides participants with a job placement service and/or offers them relevant training courses. Additionally lone parents can have early entry facility to the New Deal for 18 to 24-year-olds and New Deal 25+.

(AQW 1933/01)

Ms Hanna: My Department has a specialist Disablement Advisory Service which assists people with mental health difficulties to gain employment. The assistance includes employment advice, access to appropriate training, help with job placements and financial assistance. My Department also funds a number of training providers which specialise in supporting people with mental health difficulties.

(AQW 1934/01)

Ms Hanna: Expenditure by my Department on external consultants and consultancy reports is as follows:

The 2001/02 figure represents cash spending for the year to January 2002.

(AQW 1614/01)

The Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Sir Reg Empey): [holding answer 8 February 2002]:

(a) The total amount paid to W & G Baird for printing over the last 5 years i.e. 1997/98, 1998/99, 1999/ 2000, 2001/02 (01.04.01 – 31.12.01) was £681,401.

(b) The vast majority of the work awarded to W & G Baird was tendered. IDB awarded, through the Government Purchasing Agency (GPA), work worth £40,903. This contract was tendered and the bids assessed against the GPA's standard 5 criteria of, quality of service; technical and professional ability; price; ability to meet timescales; and compliance with mandatory requirements. The contract was not awarded to the lowest tender but was awarded on a value for money basis.

The Northern Ireland Tourist Board (NITB) tendered work totalling £559,546. An additional £40,952 was awarded for work that was not tendered. This work related to pre-press activity on existing contracts held by W & G Baird. Of the £559,456, £266,468 was awarded in instances where W & G Baird entered the lowest tender. Contracts worth £373,078 were awarded in instances where W & G Baird did not submit the lowest tender. NITB uses a scoring methodology which ranks tenders by a number of criteria including, understanding of the brief; previous experience; key personnel; methodology; and cost.

(c) The final bill for the work commissioned by IDB was £1300 less than the amount quoted. NITB requested additional pre-press work on contracts already awarded to W & G Baird. The amount of this additional work was £10,000. Also NITB paid £90,000 over the 5 year period for additional copies ie brochures to be published (over and above the volume tendered) .

(AQW 1656/01)

Sir Reg Empey: [holding answer 8 February 2002]: The operation of the Critical Care Register is a matter for NIE plc. I am informed by the company that detailed information on (a) the number of occasions on which the demand for portable generators exceeded the number available to NIE and (b) the number of complaints received about the provision of portable generators to customers on the Critical Care Register during the past 5 years is not available. No complaints have been made to the Department during the same period.

(AQW 1809/01)

Sir Reg Empey: Unemployment statistics at District Council level are only available from the claimant count.

Details of claimant count unemployment in North Down Borough Council, Ards District Council and a comparison with Northern Ireland as a whole can be found in Table 1.

(AQW 1835/01)

Sir Reg Empey: Over the year to 12 February 2002, there were 1,429 redundancies confirmed to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in the following four Jobcentre Areas: Newtownabbey (928), Carrickfergus (339), Larne (141) and Islandmagee (21), which are within the East Antrim Parliamentary Constituency Area (PCA). The Department does not produce projections of job losses. However, there have been a further 371 redundancies proposed by companies in these Jobcentre Areas, which have yet to take place.

(AQW 1843/01)

Sir Reg Empey: [holding answer 20 February 2002]: Financial Assistance Agreements between IDB and its client companies are confidential and therefore it would be inappropriate for me to disclose detailed terms and conditions. However, Financial Assistance Agreements issued by IDB typically link grant assistance to a range of conditions including employment.

(AQW 1844/01)

Sir Reg Empey: The level of financial guarantees required is difficult to quantify as it relates to complex financial arrangements involving various parties underwriting or guaranteeing different airlines and aircraft types. Clearly however, given the market value of the new aircraft concerned, the sums involved are likely to be significant.

(AQW 1846/01)

Sir Reg Empey: [holding answer 20 February 2002]: I have sought and received assurances from Bombardier that it is totally committed to maintaining an integrated design and engineering capability in Belfast which will enable it to compete effectively for new aircraft opportunities. These assurances are not in the form of guarantees or contractual requirements. Given the current difficult market conditions it would be unreasonable for any company, not least a publicly quoted company like Bombardier, to give legal or contractual guarantees in relation to its business. Such matters are however taken into account when negotiating with the company and offering selective financial assistance.

(AQW 1873/01)

Sir Reg Empey: Since 1989 Bombardier Shorts has received Launch Aid from the Department of Trade and Industry of £16.4m in 1995/96 and £1.3m in 1996/97.

(AQW 1874/01)

Sir Reg Empey: Direct government assistance to Bombardier from 1989/90 to 2000/01 is detailed below:

It is not clear what is meant by indirect financial assistance, but I am not aware of any other assistance provided by my Department to Bombardier since 1989.

(AQW 1877/01)

Sir Reg Empey: LEDU operates a wide range of programmes of support for businesses at various stages of development. Please note, however, that LEDU does not measure cost per job on an annual basis – since jobs in client businesses are created over a time period, in most cases different to that relating to grant expenditure, it is not considered meaningful to measure cost per job on an annual basis. Cost per job is calculated as part of programme evaluation. The last major evaluation of Growth Business Support, for example, assessed the job creation of assisted businesses over a five-year period. The grant expenditure made to these businesses was also measured to arrive at a cost per job created of £8,000. The same method would be applied to other programmes of support. The following provides average cost per job figures for some of the major schemes of assistance.

(AQW 1878/01)

Sir Reg Empey: The information requested is provided in the table below:

* As projects typically take four to five years to maximise their employment, IDB practice is to commence job creation analysis in the second year after they are secured. It would not be meaningful to measure actual job creation figures relating to projects secured in 2000/01 at this early stage. The actual figure will be made available during 2002/03.

(AQW 1881/01)

Sir Reg Empey: Monthly employment figures for the manufacturing sector are not available. However, estimates of manufacturing jobs are available on a quarterly basis and details for the period March 1998 to September 2001 can be found in Table 1.

(R) = Revised (P) = Provisional

Source: Quarterly Employment Survey, DETI

(AQW 1913/01)

Sir Reg Empey: On 12 February 2002 the Director General of Gas for Northern Ireland issued a gas conveyance licence to Bord Gáis Éireann for the North West and the South/North gas pipelines.

It is primarily a matter for Bord Gáis Éireann to determine the rate of progress of the gas project and I understand the company intends to complete the gas transmission pipeline to the North West by 2004. This gas transmission pipeline will facilitate the supply of gas to towns along the route. In due course the Director General will seek applications for licences for the development of gas distribution networks in those towns.

(AQW 1946/01)

Sir Reg Empey: The NI Tourist Board has issued a total of 957 Capital Letters of Offer in the 10-years for the period ended 31st December 2001. The total assistance offered under these Letters of Offer is £109,567,082 and as of 31st December 2001, grant payments made against these offers totalled £80,932,956.

A breakdown of these offers by constituency is attached at Annex A.

In addition to capital assistance paid for the provision of tourist accommodation, the NI Tourist Board has, since January 1994, offered assistance towards the cost of marketing tourist accommodation and amenities. As at 31st December 2001 marketing assistance totalling £6,267,949 has been offered.

A breakdown of these offers by Council area is attached at Annex B.

* This category incorporates financial assistance offered to projects which are cross border, across Northern Ireland etc and not possible to link to one constituency alone

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