National Insurance Number

You will see from the following that an NI number must be recorded, or it will fail validation.

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.

(the NINO validation rule was temporarily switched off last year when there were huge delays, but is back with a vengeance for 21/22, even though there are still reports of delays)