To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what the average household income was in Cleethorpes constituency in each year since 1997. (176890)

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.

Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated 8 January 2008:

As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking what the average household income was in the Cleethorpes constituency in each year since 1997 (176890).

Estimates of household income which include income from all sources such as earnings, benefits, pensions, and investment income, are generally based on household surveys. The largest of these is the Family Resources Survey which has an annual sample in the UK of around 28,000 households. This is sufficient to produce estimates of household income at national and regional level, but not for smaller areas. Statistics on earnings by employees are available for local authorities from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) which is an employer based survey.

The ONS has published estimates of household income for wards for 2001/02, and using a newer geographical classification—the medium layer super output areas—for 2004/05. There are no figures available for other years. The geographical boundaries and data sources used in producing the 2004/05 figures are different to those used for 2001/02 so they are not directly comparable. In particular, they cannot be used to provide an accurate measure of change over this period. Both estimates are based on a statistical model and are classed as experimental statistics—this means they have been developed in accordance with the principles set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice but have yet to be fully accredited as National Statistics. They are available through the Neighbourhood Statistics section of the ONS website.

Table 1 shows mean net equivalised incomes, both before and after housing costs, for Cleethorpes parliamentary constituency in 2001/02, and for the wards that made up the constituency. Table 2 shows just average incomes for Cleethorpes constituency in 2004/05. The estimates for 2004/05 are based on the super output areas which do not correspond to areas which are as easily recognisable ‘on the ground’ as wards. They are designed to be built up to form larger areas and so Table 2 shows only an average for the constituency as a whole. All of these figures for Cleethorpes and wards within Cleethorpes, either appear in the ‘experimental’ datasets described above, or have been calculated directly from them.

For comparison with these figures, both Tables 1 and 2 provide mean incomes for either Great Britain or the UK for the relevant years. These are based on the Households Below Average Income series derived from the Family Resources Survey, and are National Statistics. The Household Below Average Income series generally presents results based on median incomes, however mean incomes are presented here to be directly comparable with the small area statistics.