Guidance

National Insurance numbers allocated to adult overseas nationals: release strategy

Updated 25 May 2023

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-insurance-number-allocations-and-nationality-of-benefit-claimants-release-strategy/nino-allocations-to-adult-overseas-nationals-and-nationality-of-working-age-benefit-claimants-release-strategy

Introduction

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publishes

  • quarterly official statistics on National Insurance Numbers (NINo) allocated to adult overseas nationals entering the UK

  • annual experimental statistics on Nationality at point of National Insurance number registration of DWP working age benefit recipients

The release of these statistics is pre-announced in line with Office for Statistics Regulation release protocols.

This document explains the department’s strategy to develop the NINo statistical releases.

Background

Statistics on National Insurance numbers (NINo) allocated to adult overseas nationals are fully sourced from the Migrant Workers Scan (MWS). These statistics are released quarterly each year in:

  • February
  • May
  • August
  • November

They present information on numbers of NINo registered to adult overseas nationals in the UK, broken down by:

  • nationality
  • a number of factors including:
    • geography
    • age
    • gender

The statistics series on NINo allocations to adult overseas nationals, going back to January 2002, are:

  • published on Stat-Xplore, which allows users to produce their own bespoke tables and visualisations

  • published on GOV.UK as Statistical summaries, along with supporting ODS data tables

In August 2022 we ceased publication of the annual experimental data series on the Nationality of benefit combination customers. This was due to our assessment that these statistics no longer met the purpose for which they were created.  The information contained in the release reflects the Nationality status of the claimants at the point of National Insurance number (NINo) registration which does not necessarily reflect the Nationality at the point of claiming the benefit.

Our assessment found that following the EU referendum there has been an increasing numbers of EU Nationals applying for UK citizenship, therefore using the nationality at point of NINo registration is no longer fit for the purpose of estimating Nationality of benefit combination customers.

Overview of changes to our published statistics

Data on NINo allocations to adult overseas nationals have also been published on the department’s interactive on-line statistical platform Stat Xplore since November 2013. The methodology to produce the statistics, as well as the way the information has been presented, has changed over time, in line with:

  • changing user needs
  • Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
  • availability and quality of data
  • dissemination channels
  • potential relevance to explain the underlying trends

The following table details the main changes.

Date Explanation of change Frequency
August 2009 National statistics on NINo allocations to adult overseas nationals were first published (under the name NINo allocations to adult overseas nationals entering the UK). Included age and gender statistics. Publication also included out-of-work benefit statistics with each release. This data is presented by Client Group (claimants of individual benefit) including key out-of-work benefits, Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), Incapacity Benefit (IB), and Income Support (IS). Annual
August 2010 Expanded out-of-work benefit statistics to include Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Annual
August 2011 Change to publication template. Included additional information on world areas and individual nationalities. Included information on time between arrival and registration, and comparison to visa trends for top nationalities. Annual
August 2012 Additional time series of world areas and largest individual countries added. Included comparisons to unemployment rates in some countries of origin. Data tables released separately for first time. Published Quality Assurance Action Plan Review, and Summary of User’s feedback. Annual
August 2013 Did not include separate data tables. Annual
November 2013 National Insurance number allocations to adult overseas nationals statistics released via Stat-Xplore. Annual
February 2014 Release of summary tables derived from Stat-Xplore including data to December 2013. Annual
May 2014 NINo allocations to adult overseas nationals changed schedule from an annual release in August of each year, to a quarterly release in May, August, November and February of each year. Included additional information for EU2 countries. Included age and gender statistics. Included information on time between arrival and registration. Nationality of DWP working age benefits claimed by overseas nationals included only in August release of every year. Quarterly
August 2014 Nationality of DWP working age benefits claimed by overseas nationals included in August release in every year. Benefit statistics supplementary tables released separately from NINo allocation statistics. Annual
November 2014 Only included time series of EU and Non-EU registrations and top 20 countries in year to September 2014. Quarterly
January 2015 Only included time series of EU and Non-EU registrations and top 20 countries in year to December 2014. Quarterly
May 2015 Changed the summary statistics document to increase consistency with other department’s publications. Quarterly
August 2015 Changed name of publication to NINo allocations to adult overseas nationals. Quarterly
May 2016 Changed the summary statistics document to increase consistency with other department’s publications. Included interactive visual to aid better explanation of the statistics for users. Included age and gender statistics. Quarterly
August 2016 Expanded benefit statistics beyond out-of-work benefits to include other DWP working age benefits: Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA), Carer’s Allowance (CA), Pension Credit (PC), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and Window’s Benefit (WB). Annual
December 2016 One-page summary document published alongside statistical summary of the key stories. Quarterly
February 2017 Quarterly publication is rebadged as Official Statistics. Quarterly
February 2017 Additional context was added to better explain the historic trends in data, and data sources. Quarterly
August 2017 Did not include working age benefit statistics within bulletin, however supplementary tables were published. Annual
August 2018 NINO Annual Benefit Claimants: A new publication is created to support the supplementary tables on the Nationality at point of NINo registration of DWP working age benefit recipients, which is published in August of each year alongside quarterly release. The methodology changes and data is provided based on benefit combinations data instead of by Client Group. Annual
May 2019 NINO Quarterly: Geographies updated in line of the 2011 Census. Quarterly
May 2019 NINO Quarterly: Additional plots were added to provide time series trends on NINo allocations. Quarterly
November 2019 NINO Quarterly: published in HTML format to meet government guidelines on accessibility. Quarterly
February 2020 NINO Quarterly: Additional time series data, and additional context was added to better explain the historic trends in data. Quarterly
November 2021 NINO Quarterly Statistics suspended due to underlying data issue Quarterly
November 2022 NINO Annual release ceased. Latest data published covers to November 2020. Statistics were thought to no longer meet the purpose for which they were created. The Nationality reflected the point of NINO registration and not benefit receipt. Annual
February 2023 Quarterly NINo Statistics published for the first data following resolution of data issue. Full historic time series published covering period when statistics were suspended. Quarterly
February 2023 Quarterly NINo Statistics bulletin revamped to include improved narrative and charts. Focus also changed from quarterly to annual comparisons to help give user better perspective/context on wider time periods impacted by world events and COVID-19. Quarterly
February 2023 Improvement made to geography allocation method where no address information found on MWS. These cases are now allocated to ‘unknown’ category rather than randomly allocating. Quarterly
February 2023 The MWS extract has been improved from July 2021 and now includes everyone from overseas who register for a NINo that is over State pension age. Quarterly

Development plans for future releases

Details of changes will be announced on this page.

There are currently no planned changes to the range of official statistics on National Insurance numbers.

Further information

If you have any views on the type of statistics you would like to see available on NINo statistics, or comments on this release strategy, email. cbm.stats@dwp.gov.uk

The NINo release forms part of a cross government release of migration statistics, details of these statistics can be viewed via the GSS migration dashboard.

ISBN 978-1-78659-252-1

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