Field: National - Regional - LAs
Description
There are many different geographical breakdowns available, some of which are made up of smaller geography types. For example, regions build up exactly into countries.
The Census Output Area (COA) hierarchy is built up from COA to the National Level based on the address of the Universal Credit claimant.
Available breakdowns within this hierarchy are Local Authority, Region, Country and the National level (GB).
Classification
Applicable to: all claimants.
Total number of categories (excluding Unknown or missing):
By Country: 3
By Region: 11
By Local Authority: 350
A full list of codes and names relating to local authority areas can be obtained from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) website here.
Quality Statement
Residency based geographies have been derived from postcode. This postcode relates to a claimant's place of residence and not the Jobcentre Plus office administering the claim.
Records are allocated a Census Output Area (COA) from the most recent available census based on this postcode (i.e. claimant's place of residence). In a very small proportion of cases, where COA cannot be assigned because the postcode is missing, a random postcode is assigned and the COA is determined from it.
All higher-level geographies (Local Authority, Region, Country) are derived from COA.