The Impact of Disclosure Control on Labour Market Statistics (& other

issues)– the User’s Gripes

Jill Tuffnell

Head of Research

Cambridgeshire County Council

Local Authority lead, Labour Market Statistics CLIP Group

Overview of Impact

• The Labour Market – Workplace population & industry sectors– Commuting– Unemployment– Residents of working age

• Ethnicity & Religion• Inconsistencies• Census & other Official Statistics on the labour

market• Conclusions

The Labour Market – Workplace data requirements

• Industry sector employment data required:– Regional & local planning; the basis of employment

forecasts for sub-regions– Regeneration areas– Wards & Districts– Industry sectors

Labour Market Census– Workplace (1)

• Greater Cambridge sub-region has a workforce of 327,900 – but NO industry breakdown from Standard Tables in Census 2001! NO industry data for wards

• Benchmarking problems with ABI: No employee/self-employed split for workplace population by industry sector, even for districts.

• No published data below broad industry groups FOR ANY GEOGRAPHY, (what will commissioned tables provide?): means NO breakdown of manufacturing, ‘business activities’, retail & wholesale trade; transport & communications etc even for districts.

Labour Market Census – Workplace (2)

• East of England Labour Market Census project• There are 96 identified sub-regions – not one

has industry sector workplace employment data, as all are based on wards

• No industry cluster data available• Impossible to prepare reports on the region’s

key industries: transport, hi-tech manufacturing; tourism; R&D, computer services, communications, even at a district level

Fig 1: Comparison of ABI 2001 Employees, (Jobs) & Census 2001 Workplace Employees (Modelled Population), former County of

Cambridgeshire, Selected Industry Sectors

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ABI 2001, Defra - Employees

Census employees

Labour Market Census - Commuting

• Output Areas totally unreliable for our purposes• Even ward based analysis presents problems e.g.

former Cambridgeshire;– Ward ‘origin’ employed residents: 349,590– Former county Standard Table emp res: 348,980– Ward ‘destination’ workplace population: 359,584– Former county Standard Table work. Pop: 359,124

Problems are greater for smaller areas – e.g.Districts, wardsNo commuting flows by industry

Labour Market Census - Unemployment

• No Standard Table with economically active & unemployed covering all residents by gender & age; (‘student’ problem)

• Unemployed is derived from two Standard Tables – but which two? ‘Employed’ resident totals differ significantly

• Example of Abbey ward in Cambridge – large population, with over 4,250 employed residents; are there any elderly unemployed females at all?

• Data problems are even greater for smaller wards

Table 1: Unemployment - Cambridge Abbey Ward, females, Census 2001

Age BandEconomically active (ST28)

Working (ST33)

Difference = Unemployed

(1)Working (ST36)

Difference = Unemployed

(2)16-17 62 57 5 54 818-19 67 53 14 56 1120-24 247 228 19 227 2025-29 318 301 17 304 1430-39 518 489 29 489 2940-49 420 411 9 411 950-54 188 184 4 187 155-59 121 124 -3 118 360-64 57 54 3 52 565-69 24 26 -2 20 470-74 9 12 -3 12 -3Total 2,031 1,939 92 1,930 101

Labour Market Census – Residents of Working Age

• Industry sector employment only available at broad level

• Should be basis for calibrating with Labour Force Survey, Incapacity Benefit claimants etc

• Should establish base-lines for Development Agencies, Learning & Skills Councils, Connexions etc

• Problems with disclosure affect age/gender breakdown of economically inactive; ‘small number syndrome’

Ethnicity & Religion - Census

• Small numbers involved in most of Cambridgeshire, (only 1,130 non-white population in Fenland district)

• High imputation rates• Swapped records• Disclosure control• Do the results mean anything? – definitely not

for wards or Output Areas in most of Cambs

Table 1.1: Imputation rates by ethnic group and district Source: Office for National Statistics – One Number Census Imputation Rates by Key Variables

Ethnic Group Cambridge

City East

Cambs Fenland Hunts South

Cambs

White: British 7.8% 6.8% 2.9% 4.3% 3.4%

White: Irish 8.3% 8.9% 3.9% 4.3% 2.6%

White: Other White 6.9% 9.4% 2.3% 7.7% 2.9%

Mixed: White and Black Caribbean 6.9% 5.4% 0.0% 5.7% 3.1%

Mixed: White and Black African 5.8% 2.4% 4.3% 9.4% 6.5%

Mixed: White and Asian 5.8% 1.8% 0.6% 5.5% 2.7%

Mixed: Other Mixed 7.9% 8.0% 2.0% 4.7% 2.5%

Asian or Asian British: Indian 15.6% 9.7% 2.1% 8.6% 5.5%

Asian or Asian British: Pakistani 9.4% 2.2% 0.0% 9.0% 3.6%

Asian or Asian British: Bangladeshi 16.2% 24.2% 11.6% 5.4% 9.8%

Asian or Asian British: Other Asian 7.1% 2.2% 2.0% 5.4% 1.3%

Black or Black British: Black Caribbean 24.9% 14.3% 1.6% 7.0% 18.3%

Black or Black British: Black African 28.1% 22.7% 15.4% 11.1% 23.3%

Black or Black British: Other Black 13.0% 9.2% 0.0% 11.6% 9.3%

Other: Chinese 22.6% 22.7% 2.9% 10.6% 12.8%

Other: Other ethnic group 13.8% 9.9% 0.0% 8.2% 6.6%

Table 2: All dependent children by religion, East Cambs Wards, 2001

Ward Buddhist Hindu Jewish

Bottisham 0 0 4

Burwell 0 0 0

Cheveley 3 0 3

Downham Villages 3 9 0

Dullingham Villages 0 0 0

Ely East 0 0 0

Ely North 0 0 3

Ely South 3 0 0

Ely West 0 0 0

Fordham Villages 0 3 0

Haddenham 0 3 0

Isleham 0 0 0

Littleport East 6 3 0

Littleport West 3 0 0

Soham North 0 0 0

Soham South 0 3 3

Stretham 0 3 0

Sutton 0 0 0

The Swaffhams 0 0 0

Source: Census 2001 Standard table T52

Inconsistencies - Census

• Different totals from different tables• Small geographies do not add to large

geographies• Disproportionate impact on small area data –

which is the chief value of the census count• Disproportionate impact on small counts –

and hence aggregates of those counts

Census & Other ONS data

• Claimant unemployment count is now subject to disclosure control – small numbers renders it useless for analysis by age/gender for many wards

• Likely to be the same problem with Incapacity Benefit data

• The Census is the only reliable data set for small area workplace statistics – yet we cannot calibrate it at ward level against the ABI or IDBR

• Still no idea of what may be available from commissioned tables; likely to be minimal

Conclusions

• Census now almost 4 years old – so whose confidentiality are we respecting?

• Far more detail published in 1991 from a 10% sample about workplaces and industries

• Disclosure control applied to individual businesses has seriously diminished the value of the Census; it appears no ward data has been published because one school constitutes the ‘education’ sector

• There appears to be no sound official statistical series on workplace population at an industry level; how are we expected to monitor and plan for employment?