§ Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the method used to calculate the working population of any given area.
§ Mr. BryanThe working population is an estimate of employees, including the registered unemployed, employers and self-employed persons, and members of Her Majesty's Forces, including those stationed overseas. Only national estimates are made—for the United Kingdom and Great Britain.
71WEstimates of employees are derived mainly from counts of National Insurance cards and from other information in the case of employees such as civil servants whose National Insurance contributions are paid without the use of cards. Estimates of employers and self-employed persons are based on information derived from censuses of population, provisionally updated for males by information from a sample of National Insurance records. Numbers in Her Majesty's Forces are provided by the Ministry of Defence.
Estimates of the civilian labour force only (employees plus employers and self-employed persons) are made for Scotland, Wales and the English regions, and estimates of employees only are available for smaller areas of Great Britain. These estimates are based primarily on the same sources as the national figures, although the accuracy of the employee estimates and their geographical distribution are improved by using additional information provided by voluntary returns from employers. Estimates for areas smaller than regions do not include employees without cards or those whose workplace locations cannot be determined from the available information.