Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate he has made of the (a) number and (b) value of programmes commissioned by his Department's Dynamic Purchasing System in (i) St Helens North constituency, (ii) Merseyside and (iii) the North West since that system was introduced.

DWP’s use of the Dynamic Purchasing System in the North West has so far been restricted to Low Value Provision (LVP) of short vocational and occupational training to claimants who have a job offer or need training to be able to compete for vacancies in their local labour market.

DWP only records nationally the number of LVPs commissioned.

The recorded spend in 2014/15 in the North West was £577,737, of which £67,771 was spent in Merseyside and £2,375 by St Helens Jobcentre.

The recorded spend in 2015/16 in the North West was £670,526, of which £148,163 was spent in Merseyside and £15,698 by St Helens Jobcentre.