SWINDON'S position as one of Britain's economic heavyweights has been confirmed by figures released by the Government this week.

Number-crunching by the Office of National Statistics has revealed that Swindon is punching well above its weight.

The boffins have split the country into nine regions, and also released details for individual local authority areas.

Their research has shown that the average Swindon resident contributes £22,025 to the local economy.

The average for the United Kingdom is £14,566 and for the south west is £13,216. Swindon's rating places it higher than everywhere in the country except for part of central London and Berk-shire.

The official term is Gross Value Added (GVA) score per head of population, and it takes the gross output for Swindon and divides it by the population. The newest figures relate to 2001.

Swindon Council's principal economic development officer Chris Worthington said: "It's good news Swindon's GVA is competitively high. We are a productive town."

However, some warning shots have been fired. While Swindon is still at the top of the tree it is not growing as fast as it was in the mid to late 1990s heyday.

From 1995 to 1998 on average the GVA score increased by 14 per cent, but from 1998 to 2001 it was only a 1.2 per cent average increase.

Mr Worthington said: "Never-theless, GVA per head is very high, and the local economy is productive. Most other places are beginning to catch up, and this shows the importance of keeping moving.

"We have done our own reports and we found that what we need to do to maintain competitiveness is to improve the level of skills and also we found that the level of exports from Swindon and Wiltshire is competitively low. The council, and the business support groups, need to help companies with increased exports to remain competitive."

ONS spokesman David Brad-bury said: "The GVA findings mean that Swindon is a productive economy, which is conventionally regarded as a success."

l Other findings made by the ONS include that in Swindon workers take home on average £574.50 a week more than the £522.60 across the country and that we work 40.1 hours a week, compared to 40.4 in the UK.