¹Office for National Statistics

Compiles information covering the nine Government Office Regions, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales for the above

This quarter, the regional economic indicators (REI) article focuses on explaining the differences in sub-regional Gross Value Added (GVA) per head and the development of these differences in recent years. This time series analysis decomposes the differences into four explanatory factors; productivity, employment rate, commuting rate and activity rate. The regular part of the article then gives an overview of the economic activity of UK regions in terms of their GVA, their GVA per head and their labour productivity. This is followed by a presentation of headline indicators of regional welfare and of various drivers of regional productivity. At the end of this article labour market data are presented. The indicators cover the nine Government Office Regions of England and the devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. These 12 areas comprise level 1 of the European Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS level 1) for the UK. The term 'region' is used to describe this level of geography for convenience in the rest of this article.

Full Version

The Full Text of this article can be found on the National Statistics website(http://www.statistics.gov.uk/elmr/05_08/downloads/elmr_may08_wosnitza.pdf).