§ Mr. McGradyTo ask the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (1) what monitoring of deprivation levels in parliamentary constituencies has been undertaken by Government Departments in each year since the introduction of the targeting of social need initiative; and if he will list the results recorded; [6781]
(2) what monitoring of deprivation levels in district council areas has been undertaken by Government Departments in each year since the introduction of the targeting of social need initiative; and if he will list the results recorded. [6785]
§ Sir John WheelerThe 1994 Robson indicators—Department of Finance and Personnel, policy planning and research unit, occasional paper No. 28, "Relative Deprivation in Northern Ireland"—are used within Government to inform programmes which target social need and are available for local government districts, but not for parliamentary constituencies. This publication was placed in the House of Commons Library.
The dependence of the Robson measures on data from the decennial census of population precludes their use for routine monitoring of deprivation levels. However, some of the indicators making up the deprivation index are measured routinely. Unemployment levels by local government district area and parliamentary constituency, for example, are published monthly by the Department of Economic Development in its unemployment press notice.