§ Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether, on the basis of historic information, an extrapolated trend calculating the probable population of the year in question has produced a closer approximation to the population for that year than the retrospective figures used in the resource allocation working party calculations.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeNo such extrapolated trends have been used. But the Office of Population Census and Surveys has produced every two years population projections for RHAs for further years. Where a region has a growing population the projections for a particular year have been a closer approximation to the population of that year than the figures used in the resource allocation working party calculations. We did take some account of this in our allocations for 1983–84 to the Oxford RHA and took rather greater account of their growing population than we have tended to do in previous years.