The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Colin Mowl, dated 11 December 2007:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many and what percentage of people in Suffolk were self-employed in each year since 1997. I am replying in her absence. (173453)
The Office for National Statistics compiles employment statistics for local areas from the annual local area Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Annual Population Survey (APS) following International Labour Organisation definitions.
The table attached shows numbers of self-employed people, and these numbers as the percentage of all employed persons, in Suffolk, for the 12 month periods ending in February from 1998 to 2004 from the annual local area LFS and for the 12 months ending in March from 2005 to 2007 from the APS.
Estimates for a subset of the population in a small geographical area are based on very small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty. Changes over time should be treated with particular caution.
12 months ending Self-employed (Thousand) Self-employed as a percentage of all employed (percentage) February 1998 38 12 February 1999 49 15 February 2000 43 13 February 2001 37 12 February 2002 43 13 February 2003 43 13 February 2004 40 13 March 2005 38 12 March 2006 42 13 March 2007 48 15 Notes:1. Estimates 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.