§ Mr. Biffenasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will list the various forms of fringe remunerations that are included in the statistics of weekly or monthly rates or earnings of wages and salaries, respectively.
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkGenerally rates of wages and salaries do not include the monetary value of any fringe and other benefits which are paid in kind or employers' payments to occupational pension schemes, etc. There are, however, cases where different rates are specified for employees receiving particular benefits such as free accommodation, or where deductions from pay which may be made when the employer provides such benefits are laid down. Similarly statistics of gross earnings generally only cover cash remuneration, including bonus and allowance payments obtainable from employers' pay records. They exclude, for example, unrecorded tips. Exceptionally, for example for agricultural and catering workers receiving free accommodation, meals etc. from the employer, the earnings include the reckonable value of the benefit as laid down in the relevant wage regulation order. Also in some cases, for example for coal miners, although the value of allowances in kind is excluded, it is given separately alongside the earnings figures. Information on social welfare payments, payments in kind and subsidised services to employees is collected in my Department's surveys of employers' total labour costs.
§ Mr. Biffenasked the Secretary of State of State for Employment if he will indicate how the statistics of weekly earnings are adjusted to take account of holidays and what are known as fringe benefits.
§ Mr. Chichester-ClarkMy Department's statistics of weekly earnings are based on surveys in which employers generally report the gross pay, excluding benefits in kind, of employees for particular pay periods. In compiling the statistics, these reported amounts are not adjusted, except for conversion to a weekly basis where the pay period exceeds one week. Except for the monthly survey, the survey reference periods are 41W outside the main holiday seasons; where, because of general or local holidays or for other reasons, an establishment is closed for part or the whole of the specified period, the employer provides information for the nearest period of an ordinary character. In the monthly survey, from which the monthly index of average earnings is compiled, the amounts reported include holiday pay. For this and other reasons, there are seasonal movements in the index. The "all-industries "and "all manufacturing industries" indices are therefore published in two forms—before and after adjustment for normal seasonal variations.