To ask the Minister for the Economy, pursuant to AQW 11853/17-22, to detail (i) the expected funding gap; and, (ii) any assessment her Department has made of where funding could be diverted from to support European Social Fund projects.

I have bid in January monitoring for funding that would see my department utilise available domestic funding for existing ESF projects within the current financial year.

These budgetary actions would effectively enable my department to defer spending EC funds of c£25.9 million until 2022-23 when EC funding would have otherwise run out. This will provide additional time to develop appropriate succession Programmes and secure the necessary funding for these valuable interventions.