Reasons for omission of social deprivation family breakdown indicator

Our Reference: FOI00847/Gulliford/QE1

Dear Mr Gulliford,

thank you for your recent emails to the UK Statistics Authority, as ONS is
the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority I have been asked to
respond.

Following consultation with colleagues I have established that we have
nothing further to add to our previous response to you on this subject,
which I include below for your reference.

If you have any queries about this letter, please contact me. Please
remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

Yours Sincerely

Nicola Shearman

Dear Mr Gulliford

Thank you for your enquiry in relation to the availability of statistics to
measure social and domestic cohesion.

The first point to make is that the Indices of Deprivation (and associated
underlying indicators) published on the Neighbourhood Statistics website
were not created by the ONS. The website acts purely as a mechanism to
disseminate the statistics. The data were produced by the DCLG (formerly
ODPM). Any policy issues surrounding the choice of deprivation domains, or
gaps in the indices should be directed to the DCLG.

The next update to the Indices of Deprivation is planned for 2007, prior to
which there will be a public consultation on the make-up of the Index. You
may want to consider raising your concerns as part of that consultation.
Again please consult the DCLG for further information on the process.

I appreciate that the above is looking some time into the future, and part
of your request concerns the availability of source data that can be used
to measure social and domestic cohesion issues or build a combined index.
There may be a number of relevant datasets already on the Neighbourhood
Statistics website, and I would suggest using the 'data catalogue' as a
means to browse the information available by domain. The data catalogue can
be accessed by clicking the 'view or download data by topic' link on the
Neighbourhood Statistics home page. For information, the "Teenage
Conceptions" data can be found in the Health and Care domain. These
comprise of birth registrations and abortion notifications to women aged
under 18. You may also find the associated descriptive documentation
helpful (which you can access via the "i" button on the site), as it
contains links to related information on births and abortions. Note that we
are continuing to investigate the provision of a range of data at smaller
area levels. For example, our Methodology branch has recently issued a
paper on methods which can be used to protect the confidentiality of
abortion statistics while meeting the requirements of the Department of
Health.

In addition, we hold an 'Indicator Catalogue' - a downloadable spreadsheet
which contains lists of dataset variables held on NeSS that constitute
indicators (usually simple comparative stats such as rates and
percentages). This can be found at:

http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/d...

For information, an updated version of the above (containing hyperlinks to
datasets) should be available in September.

Information about future data releases can be found via the "Coming Soon"
section on the site, which can be assessed via the "Latest News" link on
the home page.

Neighbourhood Statistics policy stipulates that data are supplied for
publication as pre-aggregated, non-disclosive datasets, and it should be
noted that the data published on the site continues to be owned by the
supplier department. ONS does not have access to the unit level data unless
it's already in the public domain - the information you see on the site is
what we have available, in the form that it arrives. This often limits us
in terms of further analysis, creation of indicators etc, in that we
generally have to work with rounded data, and we have no control over
changes to data definitions and classifications that affect time series
etc.

Neighbourhood Statistics priorities are ultimately set in relation to the
National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal, specifically the needs
identified in the PAT 18 report on 'Better Information', available on the
DCLG website: http://www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/publicat... .
Within this framework we are restricted by the availability of the
underlying data and its quality, and the need to maintain individual
confidentiality. Some of the specific issues relating to the data you
mention were outlined in a letter on 20th Jan 2005, from Stephen Timms MP
to Mr Quentin Hall of the Somerset Family Partnership which you may have
seen. Ongoing general improvements to our service were also detailed in
letters on 7th March 2006, from John Healey MP to yourself, and on 14th
March 2006, from Karen Dunnell to yourself.

I thank you for your interest in this area. We are constantly trying to
improve our service and we do appreciate your comments and feedback.

Yours Sincerely,

Nicola Shearman

For the latest data on the economy and society consult National Statistics at http://www.statistics.gov.uk

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