Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the Kickstart scheme in (a) Leicestershire and (b) Bosworth.

We are pleased to say that, as of the 8^th September, over 69,000 young people have started Kickstart jobs. Over 188,000 jobs have been made available for young people to apply for through the Kickstart Scheme with over 281,000 jobs approved for funding by the Scheme.

Below are tables listing the number of Kickstart jobs which have been made available and started by young people to date by geographical area of Great Britain and work sector. The figures used are correct as of the 8^th September and these figures have been rounded according to departmental standards.

We are currently not able to publish a breakdown below the regional and national level although expect to be able to do so in due course, this is because the information is contained across multiple systems and the work to gather and quality assure it would be a disproportionate cost.

From 18/08/2021 to 08/09/2021, over 4,800 jobs were made available each week, and over 2,800 started each week.

Although care is taken when processing and analysing Kickstart applications, referrals and starts, the data collected might be subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording system, which has been developed quickly.

The management information presented here has not been subjected to the usual standard of quality assurance associated with official statistics, but is provided in the interests of transparency. Work is ongoing to improve the quality of information available for the programme.