Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent estimate she has made of the number of young people not in education, employment or training in (a) Birmingham and b) Birmingham, Edgbaston constituency.

The department publishes statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the Labour Force Survey for young people aged 16-24. An overview of the publication can be found here:https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief.

The number of 16-24-year-olds estimated as NEET in England at the end of 2024 is estimated to be 837,000, which is equivalent to 13.6% of the population. These estimates are not available at lower-level geographies due to limitations with sample sizes. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16-24 in Birmingham and Birmingham Edgbaston constituency are not available.

However, local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people aged 16 and 17. Data for the 2023/24 academic year was published in ‘Participation in education, training and NEET age 16 to 17 by local authority’, which can be found here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/participation-in-education-training-and-neet-age-16-to-17-by-local-authority/2023-24.

The data shows that of the 33,264 young people aged 16 and 17 years old who were known to Birmingham local authority at the end of 2023, 2,037 were NEET or their activity was not known. These statistics are published as transparency data, so some caution should be taken if using these figures.

In addition, 16-18 destination measures are published. These official statistics show the percentage of pupils not continuing to a sustained education, apprenticeship or employment destination in the year after completing 16-18 study. This can be used as a proxy to determine how many can be classified as NEET at the age of 18. The latest publication includes destinations in 2022/23 by parliamentary constituency boundaries at that time. Data can be found here for Birmingham Edgbaston parliamentary constituency: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/8969680b-7fea-4615-ce51-08dd66bfee22.