Scottish Government

Appendix 5: Measuring the size of the NEET group who need support

The Labour Force Survey ( LFS) is currently used to measure the size of the 16 to 19 year old NEET group in Scotland.

In 2004, the size of this group was estimated to be 35,000 or 13.2 per cent of all 16-19 year olds. However, anecdotal and supporting statistical evidence suggest that the size of the NEET group which should concern us - in terms of those young people who might need targeted support and opportunities from government in order to progress towards the labour market - is considerably less than the 35,000 headline figure from the LFS.

In the absence of a national database of 16-19 year olds, it is not possible to directly count those who fall into the "hard core" NEET categories that need support. We therefore provide an interim method for calculating this "hard core" NEET figure using the LFS to identify those who are unemployed for 6 months or more and those who are inactive and require support.

Using this method results in an estimate of 20,000 NEET individuals requiring support.

In this technical note, NEET stands for 16-19 year olds Not in Employment, Education or Training. It includes those who are unemployed or economically inactive.

The unemployed are those without a job, who are available to start in the next two weeks and who have been seeking a job in the last 4 weeks, or who are waiting to start a job already obtained in the next 2 weeks.

People who are economically inactive include people looking after the home or family, people who are permanently sick or disabled and people who are inactive for other reasons.

This is an interim measure as a national database of 16-19 year olds is in its early development stages. This database is what might be regarded as the gold standard for measuring the NEET group but will take some time to develop so a measure is required for the interim period.

The number of NEET requiring support include those who have been unemployed for 6 months or over, those who are inactive due to being sick/disabled or looking after family/home, those who are inactive for another reason and do not want to work and those who are inactive for another reason and do want to work but require additional support to achieve this.

Looking at the number of NEET who are unemployed for over 6 months from the LFS gives us 7,400 unemployed people needing support (37% of all those unemployed in the group). Assuming that those who are sick/disabled or looking after family/home will need some kind of support to get back to economic activity gives us another 8,100 (3,900 for sick/disabled and 4,200 for looking after family/home).

Those in the 'other' inactive group have not given a generic reason for their inactivity (6,600 young people NEET). However, the 'other' inactive group do indicate whether they would like to work or not (3,300 want to work and 3,300 do not). Assuming that those who do not want to work need support adds another 3,300 to the total. Analysis of some of the reasons given for inactivity for those in the 'other' inactive group (not looked for work yet, believes no job available, waiting for results of job application, etc.) shows that the 'other' inactive 'want to work' group are akin to the unemployed group. Therefore if we apply the same unemployed needing support proportion (37%) to this group, we have a figure of 1,200 needing support.

This means that we have 7,400 unemployed requiring support, 3,900 sick/disabled requiring support, 4,200 looking after family/home requiring support, 3,300 'other' inactive that do not want to work requiring support and 1,200 'other' inactive that do want to work and require support, all this equates to 20,000 NEET individuals requiring support.

The diagram below shows how this figure of 20,000 requiring support is arrived at, with the shaded cells indicating those who require support:

The Annual Population Survey ( APS) is the source of this measure for 2004. The APS is available from 2004; it uses Labour Force Survey ( LFS) data on an annual basis. The APS/ LFS is carried out by the Office for National Statistics ( ONS).

For back series data, annual LFS data is constructed by combining the four seasonal quarters of the LFS. From 2003 onwards, the LFS data in Scotland has been boosted from 8,000 to 23,000 households per year.

APS data are available on an annual rolling quarterly basis. The data used for 2004 is the calendar year (January 2004 to December 2004). Data for time series back to 1992 are based on the period March to February, so for example 2003 data cover the period March 2003 to February 2004.

APS calendar year data are available in June each year.

The table below shows that there has been little change in the number of young people NEET requiring support over the last decade. Once we take into account sampling error there has not been significant change in the level of young people NEET requiring support in Scotland over the period.

Total 16-19 NEET and 16-19 NEET requiring support, Scotland, 1992-2004

Source: 1992-2002 - LFS Quarters combined.
2003 - Annual Scottish Labour Force Survey ( ASLFS)
2004 - Annual Population Survey ( APS)
APS and ASLFS include boosts to the data in Scotland.

Local data on the number of young people NEET requiring support cannot be reliably estimated from the APS/ LFS due to the relatively small sample size for which the estimates would be based upon. The 20,000 requiring support could be distributed across local areas using benefit claimant data.

Official statistics produced by the ONS undergo regular quality assurance reviews and are produced free from any political interference.

The Scottish Executive are involved in the quality assurance of the calendar year Annual Population Survey data for Scotland.