HC Deb 15 June 2004 vol 422 cc815-6W
Mrs. Curtis-Thomas

To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the average gross weekly pay for(a) managers and (b) senior officials in (i) Merseyside and (ii) the UK was in 2003; and if she will make a statement. [177918]

Ruth Kelly

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician. I have asked him to reply.

Letter from Len Cook to Mrs. Claire Curtis-Thomas, dated 15 June 2004:

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking the average gross weekly wage for (a) Managers and (b) Senior Officials in (i) Merseyside and (ii) the UK for 2003. (177918)

Average earnings are estimated from the 2003 New Earnings Survey (NES) and are provided for full-time employees on adult rates of pay whose pay was unaffected by absence during the pay period, by their place of work. This is the standard definition used for NES tables. The NES does not collect data (on the self employed and people who do unpaid work. I attach a table showing the average gross weekly wage for Managers and Senior Officials in both Merseyside and the UK.

The NES, carried out in April of each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in the UK. It is a one per cent. sample of all employees who are members of pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) schemes, but because of its sampling frame, it has difficulty capturing data on people with very low pay. It is therefore likely to under-represent relatively low paid staff earning below the tax threshold.

The New Earnings Survey publication criteria ensures that all estimates are undisclosive and of reliable quality. A number of estimates have been removed from the published tables for these reasons.

Average gross weekly pay for (a) Managers and (b) Senior Officials in (i) Merseyside and (ii) the UK for 2003
Weekly earnings (£)
Managers 732.2
Senior Officials 1,739.9
Merseyside
Managers 585.6
Senior Officials 1—
1Data are not shown due to the small sample size.
Notes:
1. The occupation groups are defined using Standard Occupational Coding 2000.

Managers have been taken as SOC 2000 Major Group 1, Managers and Senior Officials.

Senior Officials have been taken as SOC 2000 Minor Group 111 Corporate Managers and Senior Officials. Here is a link to SOC 2000:

http://www. statistics. gov. uk/methods_quality/ns_sec/downloads/SOC2000_Vol1_V5.pdf
2. The New Earnings Survey release criteria currently require that any estimate:

(a) of a mean is based on a sample size of at least 30 and that the associated coefficient of variation does not exceed 5 per cent.

(b) of a quantile such as a percentile, quartile or median, or of a percentage, is based on a sample size of at least 10 and that the sample size is either at least 225 or that the relative coefficient of variation is less than 20 per cent.
3. Estimates are based on the workplace location.
Source for earnings data:
New Earnings survey, April 2003