Annual Population Survey in Scotland: A Compendium of Labour Market Statistics 2006

Annex B - Future Developments

Modelled Unemployment Rates for Local Areas

The Office for National Statistics ( ONS) has jointly developed, with the University of Southampton, a new modelling methodology to produce estimates of unemployment levels and rates, on the International Labour Organisation ( ILO) definition, for local authority areas.

The model-based estimates are preferred over the direct APS estimates as they take the APS data and 'borrow strength' from the administrative claimant count to produce more precise estimates.

These model-based unemployment estimates are available quarterly from the Nomis ^® website - http://www.nomisweb.co.uk/ .

At present there are model-based estimates for local authorities only, but ONS are working on producing them also for parliamentary constituencies.

APS Household Dataset

ONS is developing a version of the APS datasets that will be suitable for family and household level labour market analysis, in order to meet the growing demand for more reliable statistics at the local area level. The APS family and household level datasets will be available bi-annually on a rolling annual basis.

ONS plan to switch the data source for the 'Work and worklessness among households' First Release from the LFS household datasets to the new APS household datasets. ONS also plan to improve the content of the First Release. The current 'Work and worklessness among households' First Release can be found at: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=12859&More=n

The Current Office for National Statistics timetable suggests that the first APS household dataset to be released will cover the period Jan 2006-Dec 2006. It is anticipated that this will be available in August 2007. A back series covering the periods Jan 2004 - Dec 2004 and Jan 2005 - Dec 2005 will also be made available at this time.

Face to Face Interviewing North of the Caledonian Canal

The Office for National Statistics carried out work on the Scottish Executive's behalf looking at the cost of face to face interviews North of the Caledonian Canal ( NOCC). It was agreed after this exercise that it was not cost effective to instate the face to face interviews in the NOCC area at this time. However other work is ongoing to try and ensure that sample sizes in this area are maintained at a high level and further consideration will be given to face to face interviews in the NOCC area if required.