ILR specification: 2022 to 2023

National Insurance Number: Field

Definition

The National Insurance number for the learner.

Reason Required

To match data with Department for Work and Pensions data to assess the economic impact of training programmes on learners, particularly but not exclusively those who are unemployed. Demonstrating this economic impact of training for all learners is key to making the case to government for levels of funding appropriate to the sector. To confirm employment status of apprentices funded using funds in a digital account.

Schema Definitions

XML Entity Name
NINumber
Field Length
9
Data type
RestrictedString
Minimum occurrences
0
Maximum occurrences
1
Part of
Learner

Collection Requirements

  • Adult Skills (FundModel 35)
  • Apprenticeships (FundModel 36)
  • Non-funded (FundModel 99)
  • Other Adult (FundModel 81)

Valid Entries

A valid national insurance number in the format XXnnnnnnX, where X is alphabetic and n is numeric. The first character of the NI number must not be D, F, I, Q, U or V, the second character must not be D, F, I, O, Q, U or V, characters 3 to 8 must be numeric and character 9 must be A, B, C, D or space.

Notes

Collected for all apprentices, learners in receipt of active benefits or learners who have been referred to learning by Job Centre Plus.

For non-funded learners, this field is not collected for learners with Local Authority funded Community Learning provision (Funding model 99 and Source of funding 108).

  • Active benefits are currently: Universal Credit, Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) and Employment Support Allowance - all categories.

  • Providers should treat completion of this field as compulsory for apprentices and must obtain an apprentice's NI number on start: this will be validated for programmes funded through a contract for services with the employer (Learning Delivery FAM Type = ACT1). Learners who do not know their NI number should be encouraged to obtain it by the provider. All employed status learners must have NI numbers in order to be paid by the employer.

  • Temporary numbers in accordance with the protocol of 'TN' 'DoB' 'Gender' must not be used.