The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 24 July 2007:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many people aged 24 years or under were considered to be economically inactive in (a) Eastbourne and (b) East Sussex in each of the last 10 years. I am replying in her absence. (151434)
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles statistics of inactivity from the annual local area Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Annual Population Survey (APS) following International Labour Organisation definitions.
The attached table shows the number of economically inactive persons, aged 16 to 24, resident in the Eastbourne constituency and the county of East Sussex, from the annual local area LFS, for the 12-month periods ending in February from 1997 to 2004 and from the APS for the 12-month periods ending in March 2005 and March 2006.
As these estimates are for a subset of the population in a small geographical area, they are based on very small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty. In this case, the sample sizes are not sufficient to give an accurate estimate of even the direction of the change over time.
Thousand Economically inactive 16 to 24 year olds 12 months ending Eastbourne East Sussex February 1997 3 11 February 1998 2 9 February 1999 2 6 February 2000 1— 8 February 2001 2 11 February 2002 1 10 February 2003 3 11 February 2004 2 8 March 2005 2 10 March 2006 3 10 1 Sample size are too small to provide estimates. Notes: 1. Data are subject to sampling variability. 2. Changes in the estimates over time should be treated with caution. Source: Annual local area Labour Force Survey; Annual Population Survey.