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Population Statistics

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 17 October 2006:"As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question about what purposes mid-year population estimate statistics are used for in addition to local government finance. (94110)""Mid-year population estimates currently have a wide variety of uses within central government, as well as being used by local authorities and health bodies, other public bodies, commercial companies and individuals in the private and academic sector.""As the estimates are made freely available via a number of publication routes, including the internet, it is impossible to list all their uses. However, these uses can be categorised into two broad groups:""Uses where the absolute numbers are of key importance. This may be in terms of allocating financial resources from central government, planning services or grossing up survey results. Some of the main central government uses are concerned with resource allocation and are carried out by the Department for Communities and Local Government for England, and by the Welsh Assembly Government.""Uses where the population figures are compared with other figures such as the numbers of births or deaths in the calculation of rates and ratios.""Specific uses include:""Funding allocation between UK countries in the Barnett formula, by the EU to determine structural fund allocations, by the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Welsh Assembly Government for local authorities and Department of Health for Primary Care Organisations;""As a base for calculation of population estimates by marital status, population estimates by ethnic origin, population estimates for private household estimates, and quarterly population estimates;""As a base for population projections, marital status projections, and in household projections;""In the calculation of rates, including mortality rates, morbidity rates, fertility rates, divorce rates, marriage rates and unemployment rates;""To weight or ‘gross up’ household surveys like the Survey of English Housing and the Labour Force Survey;""By Government Departments and local authorities for planning and policy monitoring;""By commercial companies for combination with marketing information;""For comparison (on their own or with other data) with other countries by international organisations like the EU, UN, and OECD;""By the EU to determine allocation of votes under qualified majority voting;""And by academics in a wide range of research."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

94110; 450 c1106W;450 c1112W

Session

2005-06

Subjects

Population Statistics

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk