anyone good at maths?

[Elbonio]

I was just discussing with a friend ofmine at work how many possible national insurance numbers there were


and my maths skills are lacking (long time since a-level stats :rolleyes: )


it's in the format of two letters, 6 numbers, one letter (AB123456C)

The first two letters can be any letter except OO - you can have OE, OH etc but not OO

then there's 6 numbers from 0 to 9

and then theres a letter at the end which is an A, B C or D


how many NINO's, theoretically, does this give us?

[Afty]

((26*26)-1) * 10^6 * 4

= 2,700,000,000

Just short of Three Billion.

[Elbonio]

hmm

i was trying to work it out by doing (25!+25!) + 6! + (4!)


i was always rubbish at maths

[KingDaveRa]

Idiot answer: Lots and lots and lots.

[Pumpkin]

Part 1 (Number of Letters at Start)
(26 * 26) – 1 675

Part 2 (Number of Digits in Middle)
10^6 1000000

Part 3 (Letters at End)
4 4

Total 2700000000


But then I noticed afty had already done it :)

[WhiteKnight]

Questions....

A) When did they start issuing NINs ?

B) Whats the current UK population ?

C) Do they recycle the numbers ?

D) How long till we run out and they have to think of a new system ?

[TE-Hellfire]

You know what I don't understand? Why they don't just issue the first card as:

000 000 001

Then the second as:

000 000 002

I'm sure you get the idea.

[dcoder]

because i think family relations are taken into account...

mine and my brothers NI numbers are the same appart from the last letter

[Elbonio]

Originally posted by WhiteKnight
Questions....

A) When did they start issuing NINs ?

B) Whats the current UK population ?

C) Do they recycle the numbers ?

D) How long till we run out and they have to think of a new system ?


they started issuing NINO's in the early part of last century - on a needed basis. Ie you didnt get one when you were born, you were only given one as and when you needed it

b) isnt it something like 60,000,000 ?


c) no they dont recycle the numbers as they have had no need to yet. Your NINO used to be worked out from your date of birth - ie two people born on the same day applying for a NINO at the same time would get sequential NINO's. These days you get given one at birth and i think the process is fairly random.

certain NINO's have different meanings. PX is often used when someone has come from abroad for example.


d) I would say we've got a long time yet. Though having said that an interesting fact is there are nearly half a million more active NINO's than there are people in the country... where have those extra ones come from? fraud of course :rolleyes:

however even with this taken into account i'd say at least another 100 years, if not a lot more...

[Elbonio]

Originally posted by dcoder

mine and my brothers NI numbers are the same appart from the last letter


thats very rare.


in fact thats the first time ive seen that. Usually you're the only person with the first 8 digits of your NINO...

having said that though i deal with people over 60 so perhaps this is something they've started doing since they started allocating on to everyone at birth...

[Toptotty]

Boring person here but you are all wrong.

The letters TN at the beginning of an NI number mean its temporary. A temporary NI number is made up of TN - Date of birth - F/M depending on gender.

So my temp NI number would be TN050177F.

So, the combination "TN" cannot be used in "real" NI numbers.

But, you can work on a temp number. This could mean, however, that another 3,000,000 people could use the same temp NI number as me.

So, you can't actually work it out at all :p:

Mandy (gone back to her government training admin manager days for a mo!)

[Elbonio]

we're not wrong...

i am aware that there are certain prefixes used for temporary cases

which is why i included it in the calculation as it is theoretically possible that if they ran out they could use up the temporay allocation whilst they thought up a new scheme

;)



edit: just re-read your post


there are temporary NINO's that work and ones that dont, the ones you're talking about would not be able to be put onto the DCI record system as a working NINO

but there are temporary ones which *do* work.. they only use a certain prefix however ( think there's 2 but i cant remeber what they are)