The Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) is a
geocode standard for referencing the
subdivisions of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for statistical purposes. The NUTS code for the UK is
UK and there are 12
first level regions within the State. As a country of the UK, there are 9 such regions in
England. The standard is developed and regulated by the
European Union (EU). The NUTS standard is instrumental in delivering the EU's
Structural Funds. A hierarchy of three levels is established by
Eurostat. The sub-structure corresponds to
administrative divisions within the country. Formerly, the further NUTS divisions IV and V existed; these have now been replaced by
Local Administrative Units (LAU-1 and LAU-2 respectively). Between 1994 and 2011, the nine regions had an administrative role in the implementation of
UK Government policy, and as the areas covered by (mostly indirectly) elected bodies.