HC Deb 03 December 1986 vol 106 cc689-90W
Mr. Gould

asked the Minister for the Civil Service if, in respect of the statistics kept and published by his Department, he will publish in the Official Report any changes since 1979 in (a) the statistical series which are published, including those which have been introduced and those which have been dropped, (b) the basis on which any elements in the statistics are estimated, calculated or presented, (c) the periods over which, and the dates on which the series are collected or published and (d) any other respects in the ways in which the statistics are collected, recorded, presented, evaluated or published; and if he will explain the reasons for any such changes.

Mr. Luce

This is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. However, I understand that changes in the basis of compilation, presentation and publication of statistical series produced by the Central Statistical Office are made from time to time in response to the requirements of Government, businesses and international organisations for statistical information. Other changes reflect changes in administrative systems on which some series are based, the development of new statistical techniques and technological developments affecting the compilation and dissemination of statistical data.

When such changes are made they are fully documented in the relevant statistical publications. Several thousand series are involved in this process, the principal groupings among them being as follows: National Income

  1. (i) Introduction of a revised Standard Industrial Classification in 1983;
  2. (ii) Rebasing of constant price series to a new base year (1980) in 1983;
  3. (iii) Introduction of a new "classification of the functions of government" (COFOG) which has been applied to the national account analyses of government expenditure from the 1985 Blue Book; and
  4. (iv) Reclassification of consumers' expenditure in the 1983 Blue Book.

The bases of the above series are set out in the publication "The United Kingdom National Accounts Sources and Methods"; this was thoroughly revised, re-edited and republished in 1985 to take account of the changes which had occurred since the previous edition in 1968. Subsequent changes are notified in the CSO's annual national accounts "Blue Book".

Balance of Payments
  1. (i) Additional series now incorporated in the balance of payments accounts include:
    • UK residents' deposits with banks abroad;
    • Gross interest payments and receipts in respect of foreign currency borrowing and lending; lending;
    • Services provided by contractors.
  2. (ii) Less information is now available on trade credit following the discontinuation of the inquiry previously sent to companies about sources and uses of funds.
  3. (iii) Following the abolition of exchange control in 1979, several series previously dependent on information from exchange control records now use information from internaioal banking organisations and new surveys.surveys.

Exact details of the changes in the contents of the balance of payments accounts, both in presentation and in the availability of particular series, are described in each issue of the annual publication "United Kingdom Balance of Payments" (The CSO "Pink Book").

Financial and Public Sector Statistics Changes since 1979 include:
  1. (i) The introduction of statistics of personal sector committed and discretionary saving,
  2. (ii) The introduction of monthly estimates of the PSBR;
  3. (iii) The first official estimates of annual balance sheets, covering financial items and also physical assets for the main economic sectors and for the country as a whole.
  4. (iv) A number of new or rearranged tables have appeared in "Financial Statistics", in particular relating to public expenditure, showing separate financial accounts for central government, local authorities and public corporations, and analysing public corporations capital and financial accounts.
  5. (v) Some Tables have been dropped—eg relating to Trustee Savings Bank when it became part of the monetary sector in 1981.

Notes on changes generally appear in the CSO monthly publication "Financial Statistics".

Index of Production
  1. (i) Extension of stock adjustment from quarterly to monthly series.
  2. (ii) Bias adjustment introduced (to early estimates only) for monthly manufacturing series in January 1986.
  3. (iii) Construction reverted from monthly to quarterly series.
  4. (iv) Separate identification of North Sea Oil Index of Production discontinued.

Notes on these changes appear in Economic Trends, except for (ii) above, which has been described in press notices and for which a detailed note is available on request.

Gross Domestic Product (Output Measure)
  1. (i) Separate identification of North Sea Oil and non-oil production no longer published, although available on request.
  2. (ii) A series for "total service industries" was introduced in 1986.
Productivity Output per hour for manufacturing industry added in 1982.Unit Wage Costs The output measure of GDP replaced the income measure in the calculation of whole economy unit wage costs and, in addition, an adjustment was incorporated to cover the earnings of the self-employed. This change was described in the Employment Gazette May 1986, and in a footnote reference in Monthly Digest table 7.4.Distribution of Income The estimates of the distribution of income based jointly on the survey of personal incomes and the family expenditure survey have been reduced in frequency from annual to triennial following a recommendation of the Rayner review of the GSS.
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