Historical data now available in a single dataset

From today, Nomis is updating the Claimant Count by Sex and Age dataset to allow users to produce a single analysis covering periods from 1986 to present.

Background

Prior to commencement of the roll-out of Universal Credit in 2013, claimants of Jobseeker's Allowance (JSA) constituted the Claimant Count. Once Universal Credit (UC) roll-out started, the Claimant Count became a hybrid measure combining claimants of JSA with a subset of claimants of UC.

Because the information available to Nomis regarding UC claimants is different from the information historically available under JSA, it was not possible to just add the new Claimant Count periods to the historic JSA series. Instead new datasets were created, from the start of 2013, based on the information available from the combined JSA and UC data.

This meant that users who wanted a fuller history of Claimant Count information would have to take periods from 2013 onwards from the new Claimant Count dataset and append those series with information for periods earlier than 2013 from the JSA datasets.

Extended dataset

With the addition of pre-2013 JSA figures to the Claimant Count by Sex and Age dataset, statistics can be produced from the one dataset for periods from 1986 to the latest data.

The continuous run of data is only available for a limited range of geographies, including local authorities, combined authorities, regions and countries. Whilst a wider range of geographies are available, they will only have data for periods from January 2013.

Note regarding age bands

Some existing age bands are not possible to produce for periods prior to 2013 because they were not part of the original JSA dataset. Because there is a current policy desire for these age categories, rather than reduce the number of bands available the dataset will contain a few inconsistencies for these age bands for periods prior to January 2013.

• Claimants aged 18-21: This age group is not available for periods prior to January 2013. If you select this age band the count will be shown as zero for these periods, rather than missing. This does not affect any other age bands. Totals for the 18-24 age band will be correct for all periods.
• Claimants aged over 60: It is not possible to split the counts prior to January 2013 between those aged 60 to 64 and those aged over 65. Consequently, if you select the 60-64 and 65+ age bands for these periods, Nomis will return the whole figure for those aged 60+ in the 60-64 category and zero in the 65+ age category. Since there were only 25 claimants aged over 65 in January 2013, the impact of this misclassification will be very small.