§ Paul FarrellyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills if he will publish the latest research he has commissioned on average household incomes by(a) parliamentary constituency and (b) local education authority in (i) England and Wales, (ii) Scotland and (iii) Northern Ireland. [139634]
§ Ruth KellyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the National statistician. I have asked him to reply.
Letter from Len Cook to Mr. Farrelly dated 19 November 2003:
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Percentages (a) Wiltshire LEA (b) Dorset LEA (c) Devon LEA1 England English Maths English Maths English Maths English Maths 20032 74 77 75 77 70 73 68 70 2002 70 73 72 73 71 71 67 67 2001 69 72 70 73 65 70 65 66 2000 70 71 70 72 63 67 64 65 1999 71 69 67 69 66 66 64 62 1998 71 66 68 65 68 64 65 59 1997 63 67 62 68 60 63 57 60 1 For 1997, Devon LEA included schools in Torbay and Plymouth. Following the local government reorganisation in 1998, Torbay and Plymouth schools are excluded from the Devon figures. 2 The 2003 information is based on provisional data. As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question relating to research commissioned on average household incomes by (a) parliamentary constituency and (b) local education authority in (i) England and Wales, (ii) Scotland and (iii) Northern Ireland.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has not commissioned any research on average household incomes by parliamentary constituencies or by local education authorities. However, estimates of average household income and household disposable income are available at regional, sub-regional and local area levels (NUTS levels 1, 2 and 3 respectively), and were published in a news release on 26 March 2002, available on the National Statistics website at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/reg0302.pdf.
In most cases, NUTS level 3 areas are groups of administrative areas that are also local education authorities, but this is not the case throughout the UK.
ONS has also conducted work to develop estimates of average incomes at the ward level, and the results should be published within the next three months. However, these estimates cannot simply be aggregated to parliamentary constituencies or local education authorities. These results will be the best estimates at the ward level, and to produce the best estimates for parliamentary constituencies or local education authorities, different methodologies are likely to be more appropriate.
I understand that there is work carried out by the devolved administrations in Scotland and Northern Ireland on household incomes at various geographic levels.