Correction to the written answer to parliamentary question 31081
Provides corrected figures for the number of people who habitually travel to a place of work.
I regret to inform the house that there was an inaccuracy in the answer I gave to parliamentary question 31081 on 16 December, Official Report, col 866-7W, about the numbers of persons who habitually travel to a place of work. The table, with corrected figures for 2005, is detailed below:
Numbers of people by mode of travel and location of workplace
| Area | Mode of travel | October to December 20051 (thousands) | October to December 2006 (thousands) | October to December 2007 (thousands) | October to December 2008 (thousands) | October to December 2009 (thousands) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| England | Train2 | 1,017 | 970 | 1,072 | 1,084 | 1,040 |
| England | Car3 | 15,649 | 14,605 | 14,518 | 14,281 | 13,998 |
| England | Bus and coach4 | 1,656 | 1,562 | 1,526 | 1,477 | 1,331 |
| East Midlands | Train2 | - | - | 12 | 13 | 13 |
| East Midlands | Car | 1,393 | 1,317 | 1,321 | 1,341 | 1,279 |
| East Midlands | Bus and coach4 | 90 | 99 | 120 | 97 | 97 |
Source: ONS labour force survey (LFS)
Note:
1 Following realignment from seasonal to calendar quarters, data for December is assumed to follow the same pattern as that of October and November
2 Includes railway trains but excludes underground train and light railway or tram
3 Includes car, van, minibus and works van
4 Includes bus, coach and private bus
An investigation has shown that the error was due to a change in the labour force survey methodology introduced by ONS in early 2006. Specifically, the survey changed from providing data for non-standard ‘seasonal’ quarters (i.e. ‘Autumn’ = September to November, ‘Winter’ = December to February, etc.) to using more standard calendar quarters from this point. As a result of this change, the department’s estimates for the period October to December in 2005 are actually based on only 2 months of data (October to November) instead of 3 months in all later years. The 2005 estimates given in the answer should therefore have been adjusted upwards by a factor of 1.5 to take account of this difference. However, this adjustment was not applied and the error was not spotted before the draft answer was submitted.