Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of the 280,000 jobs approved for funding by the Kickstart Scheme as of 31 August 2021 were based in Scotland.

As of 31st August, there were 280,000 jobs approved for funding by the Kickstart Scheme, of which over 17,000 of these were from applications that listed the employer address as based in Scotland. This equates to 6% of the total approved jobs.

It is worth noting, we do not hold information on the location of a job at the application approval stage as this information is only confirmed once a job is available to apply for. We do however, hold information on the locations listed on original employer application form though these are not necessarily where the Kickstart job will be based and in many cases represent the head office of a particular employer and not the location the Kickstarter will be working.

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.