To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office what the level of unemployment in Glenrothes constituency was in each year since 1997. (322402)

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.

Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated March 2010:

As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your Parliamentary Question asking what the level of unemployment in Glenrothes constituency was in each year since 1997. (322402)

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) compiles unemployment statistics for local areas from the Annual Population Survey and its predecessor the annual Labour Force Survey (LFS) following International Labour Organisation (ILO) definitions. However, due to small sample sizes estimates of unemployment for the Glenrothes constituency are unavailable.

As an alternative, in Table 1 we have provided the number of persons claiming Jobseeker's Allowance for the Glenrothes constituency for January 2010 and January of each year since 2005. Figures prior to this date are unavailable as Glenrothes only became a parliamentary constituency in the 2005 General Election.

National and local area estimates for many labour market statistics, including employment, unemployment and claimant count are available on the NOMIS website at

http://www.nomisweb.co.uk