(2) how many people in Scotland aged 16 and 17 earn less than (a) £5.35 and (b) £4.45 an hour.
The information requested falls within the responsibility of the National Statistician, who has been asked to reply.
Letter from Jil Matheson, dated 23 November 2006:
The National Statistician has been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Questions asking how many people in Scotland aged 16 and 17 earn less than (a) £5.35 and (b) £4.45 an hour and how many people in Scotland aged between 18 and 21 years earn less than £5.35 an hour. I am replying in her absence. (101580, 101582).
Earnings statistics are estimated from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), and are provided for employees whose pay was unaffected by absence during the pay period. The standard definition used for ASHE would only include employees on adult rates of pay, however for this analysis employees on trainee and junior rates have been included. The ASHE does not collect data on the self employed and people who do unpaid work.
For estimates of employees falling below hourly earnings levels, the ASHE does not provide counts, but rather provides estimates of the proportion of total employees. The levels of £5.35 and £4.45 are the current levels of the national minimum wage for employees aged 21 and over and employees aged 18-21 years, which came into effect 1 October 2006. However, available estimates are based on the ASHE 2006, which relates to April 2006 when the national minimum wage levels were £5.05 and £4.25. The estimates of the proportion of employees in Scotland aged 16 and 17 years earning less than £5.35 and £4.45 an hour are 75 per cent. and 45 per cent. respectively. The estimate of the proportion of employees in Scotland aged between 18 and 21 years earning less than £5.35 an hour is 38 per cent. Corresponding estimates for 16-17 year olds earning less than £5.05 and £4.25 are 60 per cent. and 38 per cent. respectively, with 20 per cent. of 18-21 year olds earning less than £5.05.
The ASHE, carried out in April of each year, is the most comprehensive source of earnings information in the United Kingdom. It is a one per cent. sample of all employees who are members of pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) schemes, but because of its sampling frame, it has difficulty capturing data on people with very low pay. It is therefore likely to under-represent relatively low paid staff earning below the tax threshold.
The estimates relate to hourly earnings excluding overtime, which differs from the hourly rate used within the national minimum wage in its treatment of shift premium payments. This is the closest measure to the national minimum wage for which these estimates are available.