LSC South East - lsc.gov.uk - Learning and Skills Council

4. Contextual information relevant to the forecasts
4.1 Population
The population projections from the ONS suggest that overall there will be a
modest reduction in the population between now and 2013, continuing to decline
thereafter to 2020. The trend for 16 and 17 year olds is shown in Figure 1:
Figure 1: Trend in the 16 and 17 year old population in South East England (000s).
225.0
220.0
215.0
210.0
205.0
200.0
195.0
190.0
185.0
180.0
175.0
Source: ONS and LSC
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
Thus it can be seen that 2008 is expected be a peak in terms of population for this
age group with a more or less continuous decline through to 2020. The population
declines by 4.7% between 2006 (our baseline year) and 2013 when it is expected
that the school leaving age will be raised to 17. By 2015, the population will have
declined by 6.1% and by 2020 the decline is 7.7%.
Thus even if the participation rate rises substantially, the increase in student
numbers may be modest. For example, supposing that the 16 year old
participation rate rises from 86% in 2006 to 98% in 2013, the number of students
should rise by only 98 _ (1 – 0.047) – 86 _ 1 = 7.4%. If the 98% participation rate
holds true through to 2020, the number of 16 year olds in the system will only be
6.0% above the level in 2006. Individual authorities will, of course, vary around this
average.
The dispersion of population trends by counties is shown in Figure 2 below, where
it is evident that the trends are similar across all the counties of the SE but differ
from the experience of unitary authorities.
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