Guidance

Methodology review and revisions to New Enterprise Allowance Official Statistics

Published 5 January 2021

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

© Crown copyright 2021

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/methodology-review-and-revisions-to-new-enterprise-allowance-official-statistics-statistical-notice/methodology-review-and-revisions-to-new-enterprise-allowance-official-statistics

This statistical notice advises users of a methodology review and revisions to the Official Statistics: New Enterprise Allowance (NEA) publications. The revisions do not change the overall narrative of the statistics, or alter any key trends or patterns.

After the delay to the publication of the Official Statistics: New Enterprise Allowance: April 2011 to June 2020, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) analysts have completed a full review of the methodology used to produce the Official Statistics, which has affected all tables with the exceptions of:

  • Table 5 on ‘Contractual Performance’
  • the ‘Starts to NEA; Existing Self-Employed’ column of Table 6

New identification numbers in the DWP Provider Referrals and Payments (PRaP) dataset meant that some NEA starts after May 2019 were not being captured. As such, the methodology review and correction of errors has resulted in the following key changes:

  • the total number of NEA starts between June 2019 and December 2019 has been revised upwards by 22%, which equates to around 1,900 starts – this change is reflected in Table 1, and the ‘Link Up Start Up Workshop (LUSU)’ and ‘All starts to NEA’ columns of Table 6
  • the total number of individuals on NEA has been revised upwards by 10%, which equates to around 22,000 individuals – this change is reflected in Table 3 and Table 7
  • as a result of more accurate matching between datasets picking up an extra 17,000 individuals, the total number of individuals claiming any benefit between May 2017 and December 2019 has been revised upwards by around 60% – this change is reflected in Table 2

The following smaller changes have also been made:

  • the proportion of individuals on NEA on each benefit has been revised by between 1 and 4% each month as a result of more accurate matching between datasets – this change is reflected in Table 2
  • due to a change in methodology to more accurately detect benefit spells, the percentage of NEA participants who were continuously off benefit for 26 weeks after their business start has been revised but remains within 5 percentage points of previous publications for any given date – this change is reflected in Table 4

Due to these revisions, previous publications may be inaccurate and should be used with caution. We recommend using the most recent publication, Official Statistics: New Enterprise Allowance: April 2011 to June 2020, for any historical figures.

If you have any views or comments on this revision, send them by email to: anisha.roberts@dwp.gov.uk or jakob.reinholdsson@dwp.gov.uk

This statistical notice was issued by: Data and Analytics, Digital Group, Department for Work and Pensions.

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