On 29 June 1998 the Government announced that agreement had been reached with Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, on a new classification of United Kingdom areas for European purposes. The classification is known as the Nomenclature of Units for Territorial Statistics (NUTS).

The new structure generally follows the scheme below:

Level	Proposed Structure				Number of areas
	Type of area
	England		Scotland* and Wales	Northern Ireland
1	Government Office Regions		Countries	Country	12
2	Counties (some grouped)		Groups of unitary authorities	Country	37
3	Upper tier authorities (counties)	Groups of unitary authorities	Groups of unitary authorities	Groups of districts	133
4	Lower tier authorities (districts)	Individual unitary authorities	Individual unitary authorities	Individual districts	443
5	Wards		Wards	Wards	About 11,000

  *  In Scotland, Levels 2, 3 and 4 areas are combinations of unitary authorities, Local Enterprise Councils (LECs) or parts thereof.