You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act please can I request to have the following information.
1.
i. The total number of suicides of 4-11 year olds each year, in the years: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
ii. The total number of suicides of 12-18 year olds each year, in the years: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
iii. The total number of suicides of those aged 18+ and in full time education each year, in the years: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015.
2.
i. The area which had the highest amount of suicides of 4-11 year olds in the past five years.
ii. The area which had the highest amount of suicides of 12-18 year olds in the past five years.
iii. The area which had the highest amount of suicides of those aged 18+ and in full time education in the past five year
We said
Thank you for your query regarding suicide mortality data.
ONS defines suicide as either - Intentional self-harm (ICD code X60 - X84) or Injury/poisoning of undetermined intent (ICD Y10 - Y34) for people 15 years old and above. For 10-14 year olds ONS use only the codes X60 - X84 . These breakdowns of death registrations can be found in the Deaths Registration (DR Series) statistical bulletin. There is a comprehensive back series to this publication up to 2014. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathsregisteredinenglandandwalesseriesdrreferencetables
The 2015 Death Registration tables will be published in October this year. Summary tables have been published for 2015 and can be found here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/deathregistrationssummarytablesenglandandwalesreferencetables
ONS also produce a Suicide specific bulletin for the UK. The latest is for deaths registered in 2014, and can be found here - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/suicidesintheunitedkingdom/2014registrations
To provide some information for your direct query:
1 (i) - ONS does not publish suicides for ages below 10 years. This is because coroners cannot record a verdict of suicide for someone aged under 10 years.
1 (ii) - ONS do not have a break down for the age band 12-18 years. The suicide bulletin linked above contains data with numbers of deaths and age-specific rates for those aged 10 to 14 and 15 to 19 years.
1 (iii) - ONS has published data on Student Suicides https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/adhocs/005912studentsuicidesbyusualplaceofresidenceindicator2002to2014
The figures detail student suicides (those aged 18 and over), in England and Wales. In the data set, the figures in the "no international indicator" column details students in England and Wales. The "international indicator" column details international students. There is a time series from 2002 to 2014.
2 (i) - not possible given the explanation in 1 (i).
2 (ii) - not published due to low numbers
2 (iii) - not published due to low numbers
If the above publications do not meet your needs then special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England & Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to: mortality@ons.gov.uk. We recommend that you contact the Mortality team directly in order to discuss your data requirements in more detail. Please note that ONS only holds England & Wales death registrations, and not data for the whole of the UK.
As this information is already available to you via this route ONS considers that S21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.