Longitudinal Study of Young People (LSYPE) data linkage

The Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) was launched in 2004 with an initial sample of around 15,700 young people in year nine, and therefore aged 13 or 14. Information has been collected from the study members every year for seven years, and the most recent survey was conducted in 2012 when individuals were 19 or 20. For the first four years of the study their parents were also interviewed. The LSYPE was funded by the Department for Education (DfE) and they have used the evidence from the study to inform policy making and to help improve services for young people. For example, the decision to raise the compulsory participation age in education and training from 16 to 18 was influenced by findings from the study. It has also been widely used by academic researchers in the UK and elsewhere. The main things that have been studied are factors affecting young people's progress through school and into further or higher education, training, or work, and how this is influenced by family background and young people's aspirations and attitudes towards school. One of the strengths of the LSYPE is that it has been linked with the DfE's administrative records of all state schools and pupils - the National Pupil Database. This includes information about each school and pupil. Most importantly, it provides details of the young people's educational attainment at GCSE and A-level. Other administrative datasets have potential for research, including records about further and higher education, state benefits and earnings, hospital admissions and criminal behaviour. Linking existing LSYPE data to these administrative records would enable further useful research. It would provide information on study members at age 22/23, and into the future, without having to conduct further surveys. However, this can't be done without the permission of the study members, and it is important that they understand fully what is planned. The first step will be to re-contact the study members to ask them permission for this data linkage and for the DfE to pass on their contact details so that we can continue the study. This will be done by posting them a leaflet and consent forms, and asking them to return them. The next step will be to provide the government departments, who hold these administrative records, with the name, sex, date of birth and address of study members who agree, in order that they can find them in their records and extract the data about them. Once we have the linked data, we will prepare it for use by other researchers by creating summary variables and producing a guide to how to use the data. We will encourage the use of the data by running separate workshops for researchers interested in health, education and economic information. The data will be stored securely, and only made available to bona-fide researchers. The DfE will also pass on the contact details, of study members who agree, and we will store them in a secure address database. We can then maintain contact with the study members, and send them summaries of research findings based on the study. We hope it will be possible to survey them in the future, both to collect information which would help us to understand the linked data, and to ask for information not included in administrative sources. However, this can only be done if additional funding can be secured. The LSYPE has already provided rich information about young people's pathways through secondary school and into higher education or the labour market. However, extending the information we have about these young people will allow us to understand the outcomes of different trajectories and of family background, risky behaviours, and attitudes and aspirations. This is particularly important as this generation, born in 1989/1990, is entering young adulthood at a time when the British Government is still grappling with the consequences of a severe world recession.