Qualification levels (NVQ's) and the unqualified - The Herefordshire Partnership

Qualification levels (NVQ's) and the unqualified

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Levels of qualification are monitored nationally using NVQs (National Vocational Qualifications). There are four levels of qualification, which are defined as follows.

• Level 4: NVQ 4 equivalent and above e.g. HND, Degree and Higher Degree level qualifications or equivalent.
• Level 3: NVQ 3 equivalent e.g. 2 or more A levels, advanced GNVQ, NVQ 3, 2 or more higher or advanced higher national qualifications (Scotland) or equivalent.
• Level 2: NVQ 2 equivalent e.g. 5 or more GCSEs at grades A-C, intermediate GNVQ, NVQ 2, intermediate 2 national qualification (Scotland) or equivalent.
• Level 1: NVQ 1 equivalent e.g. fewer than 5 GCSEs at grades A-C, foundation GNVQ, NVQ 1, intermediate 1 national qualification (Scotland) or equivalent.

Data for the levels of qualification held comes from the Annual Population Survey (APS)¹, a product of the Office of National Statistics.

As well as the four NVQ levels the APS qualification data also includes two further categories, which are 'Other qualification' and 'No Qualification'.

Chart 1. Proportion of working age population with each qualification level for England, the West Midlands and Herefordshire, 2006. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals (see data sheet for an explanation of confidence intervals).

Source - Annual Population Survey (ONS Crown Copyright)

From chart 1 it is clear that the higher the level of qualification the smaller the proportion of the working age population that possess it, with this being the case for all areas. The proportion with other and no qualifications are both relatively low. In comparison to the West Midlands area, Herefordshire has a significantly higher proportion of qualification at all NVQ levels and a significantly lower level with no qualifications, in the year 2006. In comparison to England as a whole Herefordshire appears to have higher qualification levels for all NVQ levels but the differences are not statistically significant. In general Herefordshire has the lowest qualification levels out of all the neighbouring authorities except Powys, but again none of the differences are significant (chart 2).

Chart 2. Proportions of working age population with each qualification level for Herefordshire and neighbouring authorities, 2006. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals (see data sheet for an explanation of confidence intervals).

Source - Annual Population Survey (ONS Crown Copyright)

The proportion of the working age population with levels 2, 3 and 4 and above will also be used for the purposes of performance management as part of Herefordshire's Local Area Agreement (LAA) and Herefordshire's Community Strategy (see indicator summary below).

Between 2005 and 2006 Herefordshire saw an increase in the proportion of workers qualified at all three levels with:

• NVQ level 2 increasing from 63% to 65% a 2 percentage point increase
• NVQ level 3 increasing from 44% to 47% a 3 percentage point increase
• NVQ level 4 increasing from 26% to 29% a 3 percentage point increase

These increases, although not statistically significant, are greater than those seen in the West Midlands region or England, which saw increases of around one percentage point. These difference may in fact be a result of the data for Herefordshire having a larger confidence interval range than the West Midlands.

1. The APS has superceded the English Local Labour Force Survey and so is only available for the years 2005 and 2006. For more info see Appendix (reference section 11).