Annual Mid-year Population Estimates for England and Wales, Mid 2011

Statistical Bulletin via ONS Media Centre RSS

Key Points

• The population of England and Wales was estimated to be 56,170,900 in mid-2011, with the population of England estimated to be 53,107,200 and the population of Wales estimated to be 3,063,800
• The population of England and Wales increased by 95,000 (0.2 per cent) between 2011 Census day (27 March) and the mid-year point (30 June)
• In England and Wales there were 187,600 births and 121,000 deaths in the three months between 2011 Census day and the mid-year point
• The estimated flow of international migrants into England and Wales between 2011 Census day and the mid-year point was 98,200 and the estimated flow out of England and Wales was 68,500
• Compared to the 26 member states of the European Union (excluding the UK), the population of England and Wales ranks fourth, behind Germany, France and Italy

Full text (PDF 15pp)

Get all the tables for this publication in the data section of this publication

Hazel’s comment:
There’s a very interesting chart of males and females by age which has an indent for age 69 (that’s where I am) which is not entirely explained by 1943 being in the middle of WWII.

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Raising aspirations and smoothing transitions: the role of careers education and careers guidance in tackling youth unemployment

a policy snapshot report by Brhmie Balaram and Lizzie Crowley published by The Work Foundation (part of the Lancaster University) in The Missing Million Programme (September 2012)

Executive Summary

School-to-work transitions are increasingly challenging for young people. Changes in the occupational landscape and reduced demand in the economy mean that choices are becoming more complex and opportunities more competitive. Young people need greater support to navigate pathways to employment and/or further training.

Together Careers Education and Careers Guidance can improve transitions. The evidence shows that good provision of careers education makes a difference in the long run by raising aspirations and encouraging academic achievement. When combined with careers guidance in the lead up to transitioning from school-to-work, it can minimise the risk of young people becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training). Face-to-face guidance plays an integral role in smoothing this transition.

However, changes to Careers Education and Careers Guidance that will come into effect in September 2012 are likely to compromise the quality, and availability, of provision. The Education Act 2011 ends the statutory requirement for local authorities to deliver a universal careers service for young people. Schools have instead been placed under a duty to secure independent and impartial careers advice, but have not been given any additional funding to do so. There is concern that ambiguity within the Act may allow for schools to fulfill their obligations by simply referring young people to the new National Careers Service (NCS), despite that those under 19 will only be able to access an adviser online or by telephone rather than face-to-face.

The statutory requirement to provide careers education has been removed, reversing the progress made towards establishing a long-term process of guidance. Without careers education, careers guidance is reduced to an abrupt and isolated intervention. Careers education should be embedded in the curriculum as early as primary school and expanded on with age in an effort to prevent young people from becoming NEET later on in life. Preventative measures like careers education are preferable for addressing young people at-risk of being NEET. If fewer intensive interventions are needed greater resources can be freed to help all young people as they attempt to make transitions post-16.

While we are concerned about changes to provision of Careers Education and Careers Guidance, now represents an opportunity to reinvent provision, particularly for those from disadvantaged groups.
Policy should consider the following principles:

• From Connexions – formerly the primary provider of careers guidance for young people – we learn that we should value diverse outcomes. Guidance should be as much about developing young people’s self-confidence and ability to manage transitions over time as it is about influencing destinations. By integrating guidance with careers education, young people can learn career management skills from an early age and work towards becoming self-sufficient. This is important if young people are expected to access and utilise resources on their own, such as the growing number available online, but also if they are to remain resilient in spite of multiple barriers to employment.
• Face-to-face provision is essential – particularly for young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Young people prefer face-to-face guidance over all other sources¹ because they are more likely to trust personalised support. Access to face-to-face guidance should be guaranteed onwards from age 13 at the very minimum. The lack of funding is likely to be the main barrier for schools in contracting independent advisers, and for those able to buy-in services there are further concerns about quality of provision. Greater standardisation and regulation of the careers guidance market is needed to ensure quality across the board.

Young people should still be able to access other resources; however, these resources must be user-friendly. The internet is a medium of information that young people know how to use well, but the way in which the information is presented is failing to engage them. Presentation needs to be improved, along with young people’s ability to understand and interpret labour market information (LMI) found online.

Collaboration is key to achieving impact. The delivery of Careers Education and Careers Guidance needs to be widened to go beyond careers advisers and seek to include schools, employers and the third sector in engaging young people. Involving other key players will ease the pressure on careers advisers and above all, create a more engaging, interactive and healthy system of support. Just as tackling the problem of youth unemployment is a collective responsibility, so is Careers Education and Careers Guidance.

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¹ See for instance: Joyce, L. and White, C. (2004) Assessing Connexions: Qualitative Research with Young People. London: Department for Education and Skills.

Full text (PDF 24pp)

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Mind the Gap: the size and costs of pay differentials between the public and private sectors in the UK

a research paper by Matthew Oakley published in the Policy Exchange (September 2012)

Abstract

This paper considers how public and private wages differ in local areas. It extends the UK literature in two key ways.

First it uses the Special License version of the Annual Population Survey to allow wage differentials to be identified using quantile regression estimation at a Local Authority level with the most up to date data available. This approach demonstrates a complex picture of mismatches between the wages one might expect individuals to receive based on their characteristics and types of job, and the public sector wages they receive: pay differentials vary dramatically both across and within regions and across the pay distribution.

Secondly, this paper puts forward tentative estimates of the overall value of the pay differentials in order to inform discussion over how much it would cost or save, should differentials be reduced, ceteris paribus, over time. These results are also split by region. Total costs are found to be sensitive to whether or not other factors, such as pension entitlements, are accounted for.

Full text (PDF 66pp)

JEL classifications: J3, J7

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The only way is up? The employment aspirations of single parents

a research paper published by Gingerbread – the charity for single parents

Introduction: Background

One in four UK families with dependent children is headed by a single parent. They account for just under 2 million families, containing 3 million children¹. These families face particular disadvantage, with 41 per cent of children in single parent households living in poverty, compared to 23 per cent of children in couple households². For at least the past 15 years there has been a strong political consensus that work is one of the best routes out of poverty, and a concomitant drive to increase levelsof single parent employment as part of a broad government strategy to reduce child poverty³.

In this context, over recent years there has been a number of policy initiatives aimed at increasing employment amongst single parents. These have included the New Deal for Lone Parents (NDLP), a voluntary scheme to help improve job readiness and employment opportunities for single parents; additional in-work financial support, specifically through the introduction of working tax credits, and included support for childcare costs; and the introduction of Lone Parent Obligations (LPO), which has applied conditionality for benefit receipt to successive groups of single parents – according to the age of their youngest child – and actively required them to seek work.

From November 2008 most single parents with a youngest child aged 12 or over were no longer eligible for Income Support⁴. Instead those able to work could claim Jobseeker’s Allowance and were expected to look for suitable work in return for personalised help and support. Further changes have been introduced in three phases: for those with a youngest child aged ten or over from October 2009; for those with a youngest child aged seven or over from October 2010; and for those with a youngest child aged 5 or over from May 2012.

This focus on increasing the level of employment amongst single parents – and in particular the impact of tax credits and the support offered through NDLP⁵ – has achieved a degree of success: by 2012 59 per cent of all single parents were in work⁶, an increase of 14 percentage points from the rate in the mid-1990s. It is worth highlighting that the employment rate for single parents does vary depending on the age of their youngest child, and once children are aged 12 or over, single parents’ employment rate is similar to the employment rate for mothers in couples: 71 per cent of single parents whose child is aged 12-15 are in work⁷, the same as the employment rate for all couple mothers⁸.

Although the single parent employment rate has increased substantially over the last decade and a half, work is not yet a guaranteed route out of poverty; the poverty rate for single parent families where the parent works part-time is around 1 in 4 (23 per cent), and around 1 in 5 (18 per cent) where the parent works full-time⁹.

There have long been – and there remain – significant concerns about the quality of part-time work that is available, which is of particular relevance given that the UK has one of the highest levels of part-time working in Europe, and many women with young children work part-time in order to combine work and caring responsibilities. Nearly half (45 per cent) of working women and 13 per cent of working men are currently in part-time employment, and there has been a steady and consistent rise in the proportion of women working part-time, according to the number of children aged under 16 within the household¹⁰.

Part-time work is a particularly important source of employment for single parents, with three-quarters of single parents entering work on a part-time basis¹¹. However, a shortage of high quality part-time work across sectors and occupations in the UK means that many women are being crowded into a narrow range of low paid, part-time jobs which do not fully utilise their skills¹². Though the availability and take up of flexible working practices is increasing, some forms of flexible working – especially part-time work – are still concentrated in low-paid and low-skilled jobs, where opportunities for progression may be limited. Indeed, research has shown that less than three per cent of part-time vacancies were for roles with salaries starting at £20,000 FTE, compared with the majority of full-time vacancies which pay over £20,000¹³.

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 ¹ Office for National Statistics (2012) Lone parents with dependent children
² DWP (2012) Households Below Average Income: An analysis of the income distribution 1994/95 – 2010/11
³ E.g. HMT (2004) Child Poverty Review; Department for Education (2011) A new approach to child poverty: tackling the causes of disadvantage and transforming families’ lives
⁴ Exceptions exist for those whose children receive the middle or higher rate care component of Disability Living Allowance, those in receipt of Carer’s Allowance, and those who are registered as foster carers
⁵ Finn, D and Gloster, R (2010) Research Report No. 632 Lone Parent Obligations: A Review of recent evidence on the work-related requirements within the benefit systems of different countries, DWP
⁶ ONS (2012) Working and Workless households: ONS Statistical Bulletin
⁷ Analysis of Labour Force Survey data from April-June2009 produced for Gingerbread, in Peacey V (2009) Signing on and stepping up? Single parents’ experience of welfare reform
⁸ ONS (2011) Working and workless households 2011 – Statistical Bulletin
⁹ DWP (2012) Households Below Average Income: An analysis of the income distribution 1994/95 – 2010/11
¹⁰ ONS (2009) Labour Force Survey data
¹¹ Sissons, P (2012) Quantitative background paper on the introduction of LPO for single parents, Work Foundation (unpublished)
¹² The Women and Work Commission (2006) Shaping a Fairer Future
¹³ Stewart, E et al. (2012) Building a sustainable quality part-time recruitment market, Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Full text (PDF 100pp)

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Decline in European road freight transport in 2011 reflecting the economic climate

Eurostat Statistics in focus Issue number 38/2012

Analysis of trends in EU road freight transport

Highlights

• European road freight transport declined in 2011 in terms of tonne-kilometres (tkm) after a slight recovery in 2010, reflecting the economic climate.
• However, there was a small rise in tonnage terms. Cabotage bucked the trend by growing strongly in 2011.
• National, international and cross trade transport declined.
• Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria recorded a strong rise in tkm performed, while Italy registered a significant decline.
• Household and office removals transport rose sharply in 2011.
• Construction industry related products are the major group in tonnage terms; food dominates transport in tkm.
• Transport for all distance classes is below the 2007 level. European road freight transport under 300 km decreased by 9% between 2007 and 2011.
• Poland achieved growth in all distance classes in 2011, while Bulgaria saw growth in all but the very shortest distances, less than 50 km. A strong rise is observed in shorter distance movements of transport equipment.

Full text (PDF 8pp)

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Stagnating incomes for the middle, more hardship for the poorest

by Richard Exell via Touchstone from the TUC

Sometimes official statistics throw a light on a completely separate issue and that’s the case with today’s personal finance figures from the government’s Measuring National Well-being project.

This programme dates back to the time when David Cameron wanted to establish his progressive credentials and aims to measure ‘well-being’. I’d guess that most commentators are going to note that average families’ incomes have stopped rising, but the figures also show how a controversial benefit change is going to hit the poorest hardest.

Continue reading here

Hazel’s comment:
I live in a relatively deprived area of the south Midlands and the hardship is noticeable. It’s not so bad for those of us who have a pension coming in regularly but the benefits for those of working age do not allow people to have a balanced diet and still pay the bills for heating and light.
And now the TUC says it will get worse. I try so hard to keep this blog apolitical but …

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‘Nothing gets done and no one knows why’: PCS and workplace control of Lean in HM Revenue and Customs

an article by Bob Carter (De Montfort University), Andy Danford (University West of England), Debra Howcroft (Manchester Business School and Social Informatics, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden), Helen Richardson (Salford University), Andrew Smith (Bradford University) and Phil Taylor (University of Strathclyde) published in Industrial Relations Journal Volume 43 Issue 5 (September 2012)

Abstract

This article examines the willingness and capacity of public sector unions to mobilise action against changes in the labour process in order to maintain some measure of control at the point of production.

Taking as an instance an extended dispute in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs over the introduction and impact of Lean processes, it marshals evidence gathered from documentary sources, branch representatives and national lay full-time officers to engage with the notion of a trade union bureaucracy.

In taking a union with a left-wing leadership and a section with 80 per cent membership with an expressed willingness to escalate industrial action, the article tests Hyman’s 1979 contention that, rather than a concentration on a bureaucratic caste, a much better explanation for conservatism centres on the nature of social relations within the union that encompass a wider layer of representatives.

Hazel’s comment:
’Twas ever thus!

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