Monthly Digest of Statistics Supplement Definitions and Explanatory Notes 1991 Edition Monthly Digest of Statistics 1991 Annual Supplement Definitions and Explanatory Notes Editor: DAVID J. SHARP ISBN O 11 620484 2 INTRODUCTION This Supplement gives definitions of items and units employed in the Monthly Digest of Statistics in more detail than is possible in the headings and footnotes of the tables in the publication itself. This issue replaces that published with the February 1990 edition of the Monthly Digest of Statistics. The definitions relate to the tables as they appear in issue No. 541 of the Monthly Digest for January 1991. If further new series are added or changes are made in the content before the next issue of this Supplement, additional definitions will be given where necessary in the footnotes to the tables in the Digest. The definitions in the Supplement also apply to corresponding items in the Annual Abstract of Statistics and Regional Trends prepared by the Central Statistical Office and published by HMSO. When annual figures such as appear in the Monthly Digest are given in greater detail in the Annual Abstract, the additional explanatory notes are shown in the Annual Abstract. Weekly averages are used in the Digest where the basic figures are collected on a weekly basis, and also in a few cases, indicated by footnotes, where the basic figures are for calendar months. Where weekly averages are given for months they represent the totals of four-week or five-week periods divided by four or five respectively. The average of a five-week period is indicated by an asterisk throughout the Digest. Central Statistical Office, Great George Street, London, SWIP 3AQ. January 1991 CONTENTS Introduction 10 Metals, engineering and vehicles Iron and steel 1 National income and expenditure Non-ferrous metals Gross domestic product Engineering and allied products Index numbers of output at constant factor cost Mechanical, instrument and electrical Personal income, expenditure and saving engineering seasonally adjusted volume index Consumers’ expenditure numbers Value of physical increase in stocks and work Motor vehicles in progress Gross domestic fixed capital formation Textiles and other manufactures Fixed capital expenditure in the manufacturing, Textiles distributive and service industries Hosiery and other knitted goods Timber and domestic furniture Population and vital statistics Paper and board, and paper-making materials Definition of resident population Rubber Projected population Brushes and floorcoverings Births, Marriages and deaths Construction Employment Employees in employment Output and new orders Self employed Building materials and components Staff employed in the Civil Service Housing Workforce UK Service personnel — intake, outflow Transport Road vehicles in Great Britain and strengths Road casualties Local authority staffing Passenger journeys and freight traffic Numbers of workers employed in agriculture Civil aviation Overtime and short-time in manufacturing Shipping registered industries Unemployment Retailing Seasonally adjusted unemployment statistics Retail sales and stocks Vacancies and stoppages Social services External trade National Insurance benefits and child benefit Visible trade on an Overseas Trade Statistics Family credit basis Income support Quantities and values National health: hospital services Groups of countries National health: family health services Volume and unit value index numbers Visible trade on a balance of payments basis Law enforcement Import penetration and export sales ratios for Notifiable offences recorded by the police — products of manufacturing industry England and Wales Crimes and offences recorded by the police — Overseas finance Scotland Balance of payments Agriculture and food UK External assets and liabilities Agricultural land and crops Horticultural crops Livestock Central government funds and accounts transactions Disposals of food and animal feedingstuffs Public sector borrowing requirement Production, disposals and stocks of food and Selected financial statistics feedingstuffs Money stock and liquidity Tea Selected financial statistics Coffee Soft drinks Prices and wages Tobacco General index of retail prices Alcoholic drinks Internal purchasing power of the pound Household food expenditure and consumption Tax and price index Index numbers of producer prices Production, output and costs Average weekly earnings of manual workers in Index of output of the production industries manufacturing and certain other industries Output per head Index of average earnings of all employees Indices of labour costs Indices of producer prices of agricultural products and of the means of agricultural Inland energy consumption: input of primary production fuels and equivalents Supply and use of fuels Leisure Coal Broadcast receiving licences Gas and electricity Earnings and expenditure on tourism and travel Petroleum Weather Chemicals Temperature, rainfall and sunshine Fertilisers Sulphur and sulphuric acid Index of sources Dyestuffs and pigment: paint and varnish Synthetic resins and plastic materials Appendix Production of selected organic chemicals Standard regions for statistical purposes Monthly Digest of Statistics 1. NATIONAL INCOME AND EXPENDITURE industries and services valued at the prices of a base year, with weights proportional to the contribution of each industry to gross domestic product in that year. The estimates in Table 1.4 are This section brings up to date the estimates for calendar years given produced only on a quarterly, seasonally adjusted basis, except in United Kingdom National Accounts, 1990 Edition, HMSO 1990 for production industries which is available monthly, unadjusted (the CSO Blue Book), and the quarterly estimates given in and seasonally adjusted. Economic Trends, October 1990. A brief explanation of the main concepts used in the UK national accounts, of the main principles Detailed methodology is given in Chapter 5 of United Kingdom of measurement adopted, and of relationships between the main National Accounts: Sources and Methods, Third Edition (HMSO aggregates, as well as between whole-economy aggregates and 1985). Lists of the series used to compile the 1980-based estimates sectoral measures, is given in the Introduction to the Blue Book. of GDP(O) are included in an Occasional Paper (No 20), available A detailed description of the sources, methods and definitions used from CSO C3, Room 132E/2, Central Statistical Office, price is given in United Kingdom National Accounts: Sources and £10.00 (cash with order). An updated version of this paper, to reflect Methods, Third Edition (Studies in Official Statistics No. 37), the 1985-based series and weights, is now available. For production HMSO 1985; this is brought up to date each year in the Blue Book industries, Occasional Paper (No 22) describes the weights, methodological notes. indicators and sources for each series used to compile the 1985-based index and is available from CSO C3, Room 131/2, Each table has a section giving seasonally adjusted estimates to Central Statistical Office at a cost of £10 (cash with order please). assist in the interpretation of the original unadjusted estimates. A consequence of the Review of Department of Trade and Industry Gross domestic product Statistics (see section 7) is that much of the source material in the paper is now out of date; an updated version will be published Gross domestic product (GDP) is the total of all economic activity in due course. The 1985-based estimates of output in Tables 1.4, taking place on the UK territory (no matter who owns the 7.1 and 7.2 are classified according to the industrial analysis shown economically-productive assets) before providing for depreciation in the Standard Industrial Classification Revised 1980 (HMSO (that is, for capital consumption). It is measured in three largely 1979). independent ways: as the total of all output, production or value- added by all activities which produce goods and services; as the Personal income, expenditure and saving total of all incomes earned from producing goods and services; The personal sector includes unincorporated enterprises, life and as the total of all expenditures made either in consuming the assurance and superannuation schemes and non-profit-making finished goods and services or in adding to wealth (less expenditure bodies serving persons. Income is shown before tax and before on imports). The difference between estimates using the income- providing for depreciation and stock appreciation. The item based measure, GDP(I), and estimates using the expenditure-based Personal saving before providing for depreciation, stock measure, GDP(E), the ‘residual error’, arises from the limitations appreciation and additions to tax reserves, is obtained as a residual of the many administrative and statistical data sources used, and is subject to a wide margin of error. including timing differences, errors and omissions, and sampling errors. Residual error is, by convention, given in the form “GDP(E) Consumers’ expenditure less GDP(I)’ but this does not imply that either estimate is superior in accuracy. For comparisons over periods of a year or more and Consumers’ expenditure covers all personal expenditure on goods for levels, the definitive estimate is the average estimate of gross (durable and non-durable) and services, including the value of domestic product, GDP(A). This is the unweighted arithmetic income in kind, imputed rents for owner-occupied dwellings, administrative costs of life assurance and superannuation schemes average of GDP(E), GDP(I) and GDP(O), for years since 1985. In earlier years, its calculation includes, from the 1988 Blue Book and the purchase of second-hand goods /ess the proceeds of sales a refinement which is explained in the October 1988 issue of of used goods. It also includes final expenditure on goods and Economic Trends. The output-based measure of gross domestic services for current use by private, non-profit-making bodies product, GDP(O), discussed below, is generally held to be the best serving persons. indicator of short-term movements in levels of economic activity. The following are not included: all business expenditure and Gross national product is the total of all economic activity by assets expenses; interest and other transfer payments; improvements to owned by UK residents (no matter where these assets may be dwellings and the purchase of land and dwellings (and associated located) before providing for depreciation. Gross national product costs). These last two items are treated as capital expenditure. equals gross domestic product plus net receipts from interest, profits and dividends earned abroad. The classification of consumers’ expenditure is fully described in United Kingdom National Accounts: Sources and Methods Caution should be exercised when drawing conclusions from published in 1985. The component categories shown in Monthly quarterly data on changes in the pattern of expenditure and the Digest of Statistics correspond to the commodity classification in relations between expenditure, income and output. Inconsistencies Tables 4.5 and 4.6 of United Kingdom National Accounts 1990 arising from the different methods of measurement are bound to Edition. be relatively larger for periods of Jess than one year than for Value of physical increase in stocks and work in complete years. progress Index numbers of output at constant factor cost The quarterly estimates for manufacturing, wholesaling and The output-based estimate of gross domestic product, GDP(O), retailing are based on information about the book value of is calculated by combining indices of the output of individual stocks supplied by a sample of companies to the Business Statistics Office. The figures for manufacturing are based industries and about one third in the case of the distributive and on returns from a panel of companies covering about half of total service industries. The figures for the latest complete year and manufacturers’ stocks and including most of the larger companies, succeeding quarters are based at first on the quarterly inquiry, but those for wholesaling and retailing have a narrower coverage. adjusted where necessary to take account of information of the The figures for the latest complete year and succeeding quarters supply of capital goods, but are revised in the light of the censuses are based at first on the quarterly inquiry but are revised in the of production, in the case of manufacturing industry, and the annual light of the results of the censuses of production and the annual inquiries for the distributive and service industries when these inquiries into the distributive and service industries when these become available. From the first quarter of 1991 these quarterly become available. estimates will be based on the results of a new statutory inquiry with a much larger sample size than the present voluntary panel. Detailed annual figures of stock changes are published in United Kingdom National Accounts 1990 edition. The quarterly figures at current values are revalued at constant 1985 prices and are then seasonally adjusted. The figures for plant The figures are described in detail in Chapter 13 of United Kingdom and machinery and for vehicles are net of receipts from sales of National Accounts: Sources and Methods, Third Edition ( HMSO such assets. From 1988, a need to supplement the survey-based 1985) estimates has been shown by studies of their apparent shortfall Gross domestic fixed capital formation when compared with estimates of the supply of capital goods based on production and trade data. Accordingly the estimates from 1988 This comprises expenditure on fixed assets, including their take due account of the available estimates of the supply of capital replacement and additions to existing fixed assets; expenditure on goods to the domestic market. maintenance and repairs is excluded. Fixed assets include dwellings, other new buildings and works, vehicles, plant, No comprehensive industrial analysis of the supply of capital goods machinery and other equipment. A further category of fixed asset is available, so the analysis of fixed capital formation by industry is land and existing buildings, transactions in which, except for relies on broad assessments of the quality of the available survey actual costs of transfer, net out to zero when aggregated across the economy as a whole. Transactions in land and existing buildings estimates. In Table 1.10, the survey-based estimates for 1988 have been so adjusted for: Banking, insurance and other finance; and are included in the sectoral analyses of capital formation but are excluded from the industrial analyses. Business services, etc. The acquisition of fixed assets is normally recorded at the time For 1989 and 1990, estimates have been compiled using the same the expenditure takes place. However some assets which are approach as for 1988. However, the results of the annual benchmark imported are recorded at the time of delivery. These assets include surveys of business expenditure for 1989 are not available to help ships and aircraft and assets acquired by the extraction of mineral the industrial analysis. In their absence, it has been decided that oil and natural gas industry. only the limited range of industrial estimates shown in Tables 1.9 and 1.10 can be shown for the moment. Once the annual survey Estimates of total fixed capital formation and the industrial analyses results for 1989 are available in the summer of 1991, they are of that total, have traditionally been compiled using data collected expected to help considerably in compiling a fuller range of from various quarterly and annual surveys of business expenditure. industrial estimates. Recent studies of the apparent shortfall of the quarterly enquiry based estimates, when compared with estimates of the supply of Annual figures (by asset) at current prices are available from United capital goods based on production and trade data, have shown up Kingdom National Accounts 1990 Edition at a more detailed level. problems with some of the results from the expenditure enquiries. The published estimate of total fixed capital formation for the years 2. POPULATION AND VITAL STATISTICS 1988 and 1989 take due account of the available estimates of the supply of capital goods to the domestic market. Definition of resident population No comprehensive industrial analysis of the supply of capital goods The estimated population of an area includes all those usually is available. Therefore only a very limited range of industrial resident in the area, whatever their nationality; members of HM estimates for the year 1989 can be published at the moment. The and non-UK armed forces stationed in the area are included but annual benchmark expenditure enquiries for 1989, the results from those stationed outside are not. Students are taken to be resident which will be available in the summer of 1991, are expected to at their term-time address. help considerably in the compilation of a fuller range of industrial estimates. The estimates are updated annually by allowing for births, deaths and migration for each area; these estimates started with those More detailed annual figures of gross capital formation are derived from the 1981 Census of Population. published in United Kingdom National Accounts 1990 Edition. Projected population The figures are described in detail in Chapter 12 of United Kingdom Projections of the population of the United Kingdom last appeared National Accounts: Sources and Methods, Third Edition (HMSO as a Supplementary Table in the August 1980 issue of the Digest. 1985). Since then these projections have been updated several times. The most recent set are 1988-based. Summary results for England and Fixed capital expenditure in the manufacturing, Wales were published in OPCS Monitor PP2 89/2. distributive and service industries The quarterly estimates are based on information supplied to the Corresponding details for the mid-1981 based projections appeared Central Statistical Office by panels of companies which account in Population Projections, Microfiche PP2 No.12 1981-2021 for about one half of the capital expenditure of the manufacturing (HMSO 1984). Summary results of the projected population of England and Wales Quarterly estimates of self-employed for the whole economy are based on the estimates of the population at mid-1983 were published obtained by linear interpolation. For quarters after June 1989 it in OPCS Monitor PP2 84/1 (OPCS 1984). is assumed that the average rate of increase shown between the 1981 Census of Population and the 1989 Labour Force Survey is Population projections mid-1983 based for the United Kingdom continuing. These estimates will be revised when the results of (and its constituent counties) for the period 1983-2023 were the 1990 Labour Force Survey become available. published in OPCS series PP2 No. 13 (HMSO 1985). Workforce Variant population projections mid-1983 based for the United The workforce comprises the following five components: Kingdom (and selected constituent counties) for the period (i) employees in employment — a count ofc ivilian jobs, both 1983-2023 were published in OPCS series PP2 No. 14 (HMSO main and secondary, as an employee paid by all employers 1986). who run a PAYE scheme. Participants in government employment and training programmes are included if they Population projections mid-1985 based for the United Kingdom have a contract ofe mployment. HM Forces, homeworkers (and its constituent countries) for the period 1995-2025 were and private domestic servants are excluded; published in OPCS series PP2 No. 15 (HMSO 1987). This volume also includes variant population projections. self-employed persons — those who in their main employment work on their own account, whether or not Births, marriages and deaths they have any employees. Second occupations classified Births for England and Wales relate to occurrences in a period, as self-employed are not included; while those for Scotland and Northern Ireland relate to births HM Forces: registered in a period. Marriages and deaths are those registered in the country during the periods shown. participants in work-related government training programmes — those participants on government The number of births registered in a period differs somewhat from programmes who in the course of their participation the actual number which occur in that period because of the varying receive training in the context of a workplace but are not time-lag between a birth and its registration. employees, self-employed or HM Forces; Deaths include those of members of the armed forces in the United (v) claimants for unemployment benefit, income support or Kingdom but exclude any which occur abroad. national insurance credits at unemployment offices. Stillbirths are excluded throughout. The workforce definition is explained in more detail on page S6 of the August 1988 edition of Empivyrient Gazette. 3. EMPLOYMENT Employees in employment Manufacturing industries Employees in employment Monthly figures for Great Britain are obtained by interpolating Comprehensive statistics of employees in employment for June and extrapolating the results of the Census of Employment using dates from 1971 to 1978 and for September 1981, September 1984 proportionate changes in the numbers employed, derived from the and September 1987 are obtained from the Census of Employment. returns rendered by a sample of employers under the Statistics of Quarterly figures from September 1977 (monthly for manufacturing Trade Act, 1947. For Northern Ireland, figures are only available from October 1981) have been obtained by interpolating and quarterly. extrapolating census estimates using proportionate changes in employment derived from sample surveys. These estimates are Non-manufacturing industries analysed by the Standard Industrial Classification Revised 1980. Quarterly estimates for Great Britain are obtained in a similar manner to those for manufacturing industries, but based partly The estimates after September 1987 include allowances for on a sample of employers and partly on returns rendered by underestimation which have been derived using results from the centralised organisations in both the public and private sectors. annual Labour Force Surveys. Revisions will be made to estimates Each centralised return identifies a substantial number of employees for periods after September 1987 when the results of the 1990 in an industry. Labour Force Survey and the 1989 Census of Employment become available. Staff employed in the Civil Service The table sets out departmental totals by ministerial responsibility Estimates of employees in employment were previously obtained of UK-based staff in the Home Civil Service and the Diplomatic from a count of National Insurance cards. A card count was held Service (but not the Northern Ireland Civil Service, the Northern alongside the Census of Employment in 1971 to provide a link Ireland Court Service and the Overseas Civil Service). between the two series. A civil servant is a servant of the Crown working in a civil capacity Self-employed who is not the holder of a political (or judicial) office; nor the Benchmark estimates for the self-employed are derived from the holder of certain other offices in respect of whose tenure of office Census of Population and these have been updated since the 1981 special provision has been made; nor a servant of the Crown in census by applying proportionate changes in self-employment a personal capacity paid from the Civil List. Staff who are locally reported in the Labour Force Survey. Estihamve abeetn eprespar ed engaged and overseas, employees of grant aided bodies are in this way biennially from 1975 to 1983, and annually since 1984. excluded. More comprehensive definitions and detailed figures are published annually in Civil Service Statistics. The figures include non-industrial and industrial staff but exclude Local authority staffing casual or seasonal staff (normally recruited for a short period only In March 1975, a quarterly employment series was launched jointly and not more than |2 months). Part-time employees are counted by central government and the local authority associations of as half units. England and Wales for the purposes of a Joint Manpower Watch, EMPLOYMENT .- Includes Department of Employment and now renamed the Joint Staffing Watch. The figures for this series Training Agency; Health and Safety Executive; Advisory, are compiled by the Local Authorities Conditions of Service Conciliation and Arbitration Service. Advisory Board (LACSAB). Quarterly figures for England and SCOTLAND - These are Departments of the Secretary of State Wales were published for the first time in the November 1976 for Scotland and the Lord Advocate. Monthly Digest of Statistics and these were joined by figures for WALES - Welsh Office. Scotland starting with the August 1977 issue. Separate figures for England, Wales and Scotland now appear in each issue of the Machinery of Government changes prior to 1 April 1983 Digest, updated at quarterly intervals. The series covers total The responsibility for the Paymaster General's Office transferred employment in all the services for which local authorities are from the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s departments to other civil responsible, except those employees whose cost is directly departments on | April 1981 (448 staff). reimbursed by central government, e.g. those employed under the Youth Training Scheme. For the purpose of converting part-time Work on efficiency and personnel management was transferred to staff numbers to ‘full-time equivalents’ the following factors have the newly formed Management and Personnel Office (MPO) with been used: teachers and lecturers in further education 0.1l, - 1,378 staff from the Civil Service Department on its closure. teachers in primary and secondary education and all other non- Certain other divisions from the CSD were transferred to the manual employees 0.53, manual employees 0.41. These factors Treasury and responsibility for CISCO, HMSO, COI and the derive mainly from an analysis of hours worked by local authority Government Actuary’s Department were transferred to the employees as reported for the New Earnings Survey 1974. Further Chancellor of the Exchequer (9,873 staff in all) on 2 December analyses of the quarterly series for all Joint Staffing Watch 1981. categories appeared for the first time in the Department of Employment Gazette, now Employment Gazette, for November 1976 From | October 1980, certain staff in PSA (1,276 involved) have and these are also updated at quarterly intervals. Figures for Wales been excluded from the Manpower count. alone appear in Welsh Local Government Financial Statistics, an With effect from 1 April 1981, some 765 non-industrial annual Welsh Office publication which first appeared in September environment, transport and common services staff employed on 1977. Figures also appear in Local Government Financial Statistics, work for the Department of Transport and previously counted in England, published annually. the Department of the Environment were instead included in the former’s figures. Numbers of workers employed in agriculture The table shows the number of persons doing agricultural work UK Service personnel - intake, outflow and strengths on main agricultural holdings on the day of the census (this includes The table sets out figures for the total intake, the total outflow and drainage, hedging and ditching, maintenance and repair work and the strengths of UK Service personnel of the Regular Forces. These the marketing of produce grown), together with managerial, personnel are normally recruited in the United Kingdom for whole- supervisory and office staff and workers on minor holdings in time service throughout the world. The figures exclude all reserve England and Wales and also estimated figures for Scotland. The personnel, the Territorial Army, the Ulster Defence Regiment and figures do not include farmers, partners and directors and their personnel, such as Gurkha troops, who are recruited locally outside wives, workmen engaged in building or installing plant, gardeners, the United Kingdom. groundsmen, gamekeepers, grooms or similar estate workers, domestic staff employed in the farmhouse, schoolchildren or young The numbers for males include male members of the Queen workers engaged as trainees under the Youth Training Scheme. Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service and the Princess Mary's The figures for salaried managers are for Great Britain only. Royal Air Force Nursing Service. Also, for administrative reasons, the male numbers include professionally qualified females Seasonal or casual workers are workers, family and hired, who (currently about 250) serving as medical, dental, veterinary and are not regular workers but are working on the holding on the legal officers, who are not commissioned in the Women's Services. census date and include those supplied temporarily by agricultural The numbers for females comprise the Women’s Services and contractors or gangmasters. female members of the Nursing Services. Overtime and short-time in manufacturing industries The figures of intake comprise all entrants from civilian life, Monthly statistics on overtime and short-time relate to operatives including those with previous service in the armed forces and employed in manufacturing industries and therefore do not include entrants for commissioned service who had not, at the time of entry, administrative, technical and clerical workers. They are obtained been finally selected for officer training. The figures of outflow from questions included in the monthly survey used to obtain include personnel who leave for all reasons whether voluntarily estimates of the numbers of employees in manufacturing industries. or for other reasons such as completion of engagement. Some of these personne! will have a liability to serve in the Reserve Forces. Unemployment The figures of strengths include personnel who are on loan to other The current figures for the United Kingdom, Great Britain and UK government departments or commercial undertakings or to standard regions, relate to people claiming benefit (that is the armed forces of other countries; personnel who are serving unemployment benefit, income support or national insurance on an exchange basis with members of the armed forces of other credits) at Unemployment Benefit Offices on the day of the monthly countries; and personnel serving in United Nations or North count, who on that day were signed on as unemployed and satisfied Atlantic Treaty Organisation appointments or forces. the conditions for claims benefit. Students claiming benefit during