The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated October 2008:"As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many people living in (a) Leeds and (b) Yorkshire were unemployed in each of the last 12 months. (226394)""The Office for National Statistics compiles unemployment statistics for local areas such as Leeds using model based estimates and for regions such as Yorkshire and The Humber using the Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation (ILO) definitions.""The model based estimates for Leeds are available only for rolling four quarter periods. The latest available estimates cover the twelve months ending September 2007 and December 2007 and are provided in Table 1. The estimates for Yorkshire and The Humber from the LFS are available for rolling three monthly periods and the latest available estimates are provided in Table 2.""Table 3 gives the number of persons claiming Jobseeker's Allowance resident in Leeds and Yorkshire and The Humber for each of the last twelve months.""These figures along with a wide range of other labour market data for parliamentary constituencies and local authorities are also published on the Office for National Statistics' Nomis® website:""www.nomisweb.co.uk" Table 1: Number of persons unemployed¹ resident in Leeds 12 months ending Leeds (Thousand) September 2007 23 23 December 2007² *** 23 ¹ Levels of unemployment are provided for persons aged 16 and over. The figures presented are weighted to population estimates published in 2007. ² Coefficients of variation have been calculated for the latest period as an indication of the quality of the estimates. See guide to quality as follows. Guide to quality: The coefficient of variation (CV) indicates the quality of an estimate, the smaller the CV value the higher the quality. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV—for example, for an estimate of 200 with a CV of 5 per cent. we would expect the population total to be within the range 180 Key Coefficient of statistical robustness variation (CV) (%) * 0 < CV <5 Estimates are considered precise. ** 5 < CV < 10 Estimates are considered reasonably precise. *** 10 < CV < 20 Estimates are considered acceptable. **** CV = 20 Estimates are considered too unreliable for practical purposes. Source: Model based estimates. Table 2: Number of persons unemployed¹ resident in Yorkshire and the Humber 3 months ending Yorkshire and the Humber (Thousand) August 2007 147 September 2007 138 October 2007 138 November 2007 138 December 2007 137 January 2008 130 February 2008 134 March 2008 131 April 2008 142 May 2008 145 June 2008 159 July 2008² **162 ¹ Levels of unemployment are provided for persons aged 16 and over. The figures presented are weighted to population estimates published in 2007. ² Coefficients of variation have been calculated for the latest period as an indication of the quality of the estimates. See guide to quality as follows. Guide to quality: The coefficient of variation (CV) indicates the quality of an estimate, the smaller the CV value the higher the quality. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV—for example, for an estimate of 200 with a CV of 5 per cent. we would expect the population total to be within the range 180 Key Coefficient of statistical robustness variation (CV) (%) * 0 < CV <5 Estimates are considered precise. ** 5 < CV < 10 Estimates are considered reasonably precise. *** 10 < CV < 20 Estimates are considered acceptable. **** CV = 20 Estimates are considered too unreliable for practical purposes. Source: Model based estimates. Table 3: Number of persons claiming jobseeker's allowance resident in Leeds and Yorkshire and the Humber Leeds Yorkshire and the Humber September 2007 12,447 77,993 October 2007 12,039 75,008 November 2007 11,785 73,470 December 2007 11,922 74,884 January 2008 12,424 79,148 February 2008 12,628 81,294 March 2008 12,545 80,576 April 2008 12,475 80,214 May 2008 12583 80,263 June 2008 12,689 80,827 July 2008 13,384 84,704 August 2008 14,165 90,020 Source: Job Centre Plus Administrative System.