Participation and NEET figures are also published in other statistics releases. The table below provides a summary of the four related releases. A more detailed comparison of the NEET and NET estimated from these sources is available in NEET age 16 to 24.
| Title | Participation in education, training and employment | NEET age 16 to 24 | Young people NEET | Local authority NEET and participation |
|---|
| Producer | Department for Education | Department for Education | Office for National Statistics | Department for Education |
| Status | Accredited Official Statistics | Official statistics in development | Official statistics in development | Transparency data |
| Age range | 16-18 | 16-24 | 16-24 | 16-17 |
| Age type | Academic age[1] | Academic age[1] | Actual age | Academic age[1] |
| Country | England | England | UK | England |
| Regional breakdowns | No | Yes (2022 and prior) | No | Yes |
| LA breakdown | No | No | No | Yes |
| Data type | Mostly administrative | Survey | Survey | Management information |
| Frequency of publication | Annually | Annually | Quarterly | Annually |
| Seasonally adjusted | No | No | Yes | No |
| When to use?[2] | England NEET (and participation) figures, age 16-18 | England/regional NEET figures, age 16-24 (includes reasons NEET) | UK NEET figures, age 16-24 (published quarterly so often most timely) | LA/regional NEET (and participation) figures, age 16-17 (includes pupil characteristics) |
[1] Academic age is defined as ‘age at the start of the academic year’ i.e. age as at 31 August. Actual age is defined as ‘respondents age at the time surveyed’.
[2] Left to right indicates recommended order of preference in which the statistics should be used based on most users’ needs and robustness of the data.
Sources
The Participation in education, training and employment statistics series are DfE’s (Department for Education’s) definitive statistics on participation and NEET for the 16-18 age group. As these estimates are based on administrative data reported by institutions, they are considered the most robust available.
DfE’s October to December NEET/NET estimates using the Labour Force Survey (usually published February/March each year) is survey data where NEET/NET status is self-reported by the young person.
Age 16-17 regional and local authority NEET estimates (opens in a new tab) are published annually by DfE as transparency data. Figures on NEETs are provided as an average of December, January and February. This information comes from local authorities NCCIS systems (National Client Caseload Information System) . Some caution should be taken if using the NCCIS figures. This is due to the estimates being based on management information which means they are not produced to the same standards as official/National statistics. Also, the NCCIS figures include ‘not known’ activity, which results in some overestimation of NEET, as can be seen in the chart when comparing the NCCIS figures to the LFS and participation figures.
Comparison of NEET estimates
The charts below show comparisons of NEET estimates from the above sources at ages 16-18 and 16-17.
Age 16-18
Labour Force Survey (LFS) response rates have seen a decreasing trend in recent decades with a notably smaller samples in the last couple of years. As a result, additional caution should be taken when interpreting estimates of employment and wider training in this release. 95% confidence intervals are shown for estimates from the LFS and have been widening in recent years which reflects the smaller sample sizes.
Further information on the LFS and how we use this data to estimate wider participation and NEET rates can be found in the accompanying methodology.
