The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated March 2009:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking how many people identifying themselves as disabled have been employed in (a) the London Borough of Bexley and (b) Greater London in each of the last 10 years. (264973)
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles estimates of the number of persons resident in the geographical areas specified, who identified themselves as having a limiting health problem lasting more than 12 months, and were employed.
These estimates in Table 1 are from the Annual Population Survey (APS) and its predecessor the annual Labour Force Survey (LFS) and follow the International Labour Organisation (ILO) definition of employment. Figures have been provided for periods up to June 2008 which is the latest period for which figures are available.
As these estimates are for a subset of the population in small geographical areas, they are based on small sample sizes, and are therefore subject to large margins of uncertainty. A guide to the quality of the estimates is given in Table 1.
Thousand 12 months ending Bexley London February 1999 12 301 February 2000 10 340 February 2001 11 345 February 2002 13 363 February 2003 15 386 February 2004 12 354 March 2005 13 355 March 2006 12 371 March 2007 14 384 March 2008 14 354 June 2008 ***15 *375 1 Persons age 16+ who had a limiting health problem lasting more than 12 months. Note: Coefficients of Variation have been calculated for the latest period as an indication of the quality of the estimates. See Guide to Quality below. Guide to Quality: The Coefficient of Variation (CV) indicates the quality of an estimate, the smaller the CV value the higher the quality. The true value is likely to lie within +/- twice the CV—for example, for an estimate of 200 with a CV of 5 per cent. we would expect the population total to be within the range 180-220 Key CoefficientStatistical Robustness * 0 [le] CV<5 Estimates are considered precise ** 5 [le] CV <10 Estimates are considered reasonably precise *** 10 [le] CV <20 Estimates are considered acceptable **** CV ≥ 20 Estimates are considered too unreliable for practical purposes Source: Annual Population Survey/Annual Labour Force Survey