Lord Bruce of Doningtonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will report progress on their negotiations with the European Commission on the question of the possible adoption by the European Union regions of the basis of the Government's own statistics at British regional level. [HL255]
§ Lord McIntosh of HaringeyThe information requested falls within the responsibility of the Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter to Lord Bruce of Donington from the Director of the Office for National Statistics, Dr. Tim Holt, dated 30 January 1998.
The Government statistical service has adopted, since April 1997, the use of Government office regions (GORs) for the standard presentation of regional statistics, replacing the standard statistical regions (SSRs) for this purpose. The North West and Merseyside Government office regions are, however, treated as a single region for statistical purposes.
The nomenclature of units for territorial statistics (NUTS) is the European classification of areas for statistical purposes, with five levels of classification. For the UK, the SSRs currently represent NUTS level 1. The ONS has proposed to Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, that GORs (with North West and Merseyside combined) be used at this level in the future, in line with internal UK presentation of regional statistics. This proposal has been accepted by Eurostat.