Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate he has made of the number of people who are classified as not in education, employment or training in (a) Feltham and Heston constituency and (b) Hounslow.

The department publishes national statistics on those not in education, employment or training (NEET) for England from the labour force survey for young people aged 16-24, available here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/neet-statistics-annual-brief. However, these are only published at national and regional level due to limitations with sample sizes for lower-level geographies. Therefore, NEET rates for young people aged 16-24 cannot be provided for the areas requested.

Local authorities are required to encourage, enable or assist young people’s participation in education or training and return management information for young people age 16 and 17. This data is published here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/neet-and-participation-local-authority-figures. It shows that of the 6,110 16 and 17 year olds who were known to Hounslow local authority around the end of 2020 (average of December 2020, January 2021 and February 2021), 210 were NEET or their activity was not known (115 known to be NEET and 95 young people whom the local authority could not confirm their activity). These are not national statistics but published as transparency data so some caution should be taken if using these figures. Data is not available for Feltham and Heston constituency.

In addition, 16-18 destination measures are published here: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/16-18-destination-measures. 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, that is 6 months of continual activity. This can be used as a proxy for NEET at age 18.

These statistics refer to the cohort of students leaving state-funded mainstream schools and colleges¹ in 2018/19 and shows their destination in 2019/20:

(1) Covers all state-funded mainstream schools, academies, free schools, city technology colleges , sixth-forms and other and further education sector colleges. Excludes alternative provision, special schools, other government department funded colleges and independent schools.

(2) Individuals are assigned to parliamentary constituencies based on the provider’s location. Individuals are assigned to local authorities based on the provider’s administrative local authority.

(3) Links to the destination measures statistics quoted in table:

Hounslow local authority: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/f6c537cf-7b79-412a-91d1-ec7862c406bf.

Feltham and Heston Constituency: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/data-tables/permalink/0196b256-45de-480e-8ad7-32430278ba47.

(4) Students who had participated in education, apprenticeships or employment during the academic year but did not complete the required 6 months participation.

(5) Students who were not found to have any participation in education, apprenticeship, or employment in England.