Guidance

Accessibility statement for DWP statistics

Published 21 September 2020

Accessibility Statement for DWP Statistics

DWP statistical publications are part of the wider GOV.UK website. There is a separate accessibility statement for the main GOV.UK website.

This page only contains information about statistical publications produced by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Using DWP statistical publications

We want as many people as possible to be able to use DWP’s statistical publications. For example, that means you should be able to:

• change colours, contrast levels and fonts
• zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen
• get from the start to the end using just a keyboard
• get from the start to the end using speech recognition software
• listen using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the text in the documents as simple as possible to understand.

AbilityNet has advice on making your device easier to use if you have a disability.

The department believes that the statistics provided by DWP must be accessible by all. HTML releases are designed to meet accessibility standards as they can reach many users, including those with disabilities.

DWP is required by the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 to publish an accessibility statement. This document is the accessibility statement as described in the legislation.

Public Sector bodies are presumed to be in conformity with the accessibility requirement to the extent that statistical publications meet harmonised standards, the references to which have been published in the Official Journal in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, or in the event that no references to the harmonised standards have been published, it fulfils the relevant requirements of the European standard on the accessibility requirements suitable for public procurement of Information and communications technology (ICT) products and services in Europe http://mandate376.standards.eu/standard.

How accessible our statistics are

Although most new statistical releases published from 23 September 2020 onward are fully accessible, and many iterations and releases prior to that point are also, we acknowledge that some people may find some parts of historical statistical releases less accessible to use.

Approach to accessibility legislative requirements for statistical releases from 23 September 2020

The strategy that DWP has adopted to meet the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 is as follows:

• publishing statistical releases as fully accessible HTML documents on GOV.UK. These HTML documents are created via approved templates created by the Government Digital Service (GDS) for GOV.UK, which ensure full compliance with accessibility legislation for all generated content. Where images are attached for graph types not yet supported by the template, these are all created using fully approved colour schemes and style guides to meet legislative requirements

• following GSS Releasing Statistics in Spreadsheets, and publishing static tables in open source Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) format

• Stat Xplore for accessible underlying data and interactive tables and graphs. Stat Xplore is an interactive tool allowing users to interrogate the underlying data for most of our statistical publications for themselves, creating interactive tables and graphs, along with a number of preset tables for typically required breakdowns. Stat-Xplore provides a guided way to explore DWP benefit statistics, currently holding data relating to 16 or more different benefits and programmes, and Stat-Xplore continues to be expanded to include data on a wider set of DWP benefits. Stat Xplore is hosted on a different website, and as such is not directly covered within this accessibility statement. The accessibility statement for Stat Xplore can be found on the Stat Xplore home page at http://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk

• ensuring that the information from interactive charts and tools are made available in an accessible format, by publishing the underlying data in accessible spreadsheets

• online and interactive maps are exempt from the accessibility legislation under Part 1 Regulation 3. Despite this exemption, we are working to ensure these interactive maps are accessible, and we are also working towards replacing our interactive maps within a new tool in development called Examine a Stat. Examine a Stat will retain all the functionality of the interactive maps and dashboards, and will have many more interactive features, in a fully accessible format. Once this service is released it will be published alongside Stat Xplore, not on GOV.UK, so will have its own separate accessibility statement

By 23 September 2020, and in many cases for some time before, most new statistical releases, and subsequent iterations of pre-existing statistical releases, both routine regular releases and ad hoc releases, are released in accordance with this strategy.

Details of one outstanding issue with merged cells in our ODS static tables, and one regular statistics publication for which the latest iteration had not been made fully compliant by 23 September 2020 are listed in the Non-Accessible Content section, with details of the planned timescales for compliance. It is expected that this statistics bulletin and fully compliant ODS tables will have rolled-out accessible HTML by their next release, which will be the first release after 23 September 2020.

As such, the majority of the latest iterations of statistical bulletins as of 23 September 2020 are fully compliant, and all new iterations of statistical bulletins released from 23 September 2020 onward are fully compliant with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Approach to accessibility legislative requirements for statistical releases between 23 September 2018 and 23 September 2020

Routine regular statistics bulletins

While in many cases for routine regular statistics bulletins some older iterations prior to 23 September 2020 were released in fully accessible and fully compliant formats, this is not the case for all publications, nor throughout the entire period from 23 September 2018 to 23 September 2020.

However, for routine regular statistics bulletins (annual, biannual, quarterly or monthly), it is the most recent full iteration which is generally the most relevant, not only for the most recently published information in the time series, but also for the back series of information through the time series. The latest iteration of routine regular statistics bulletins will have the most up to date methodological approaches and methodological improvements implemented to improve the quality of the back series, in many cases more granularity will be available for the back series increasing utility and flexibility for users. Furthermore, any revisions to the time series will have been implemented for the most recent iteration, but may not have been implemented in prior iterations. As such, upon release of a new iteration of a routine regular statistics bulletin, prior iterations are superseded, and from a statistical perspective it is the most recently released information which should be, and which we expect to be, accessed and used by users. As such, this renders prior iterations, which may not be fully accessible, of lesser importance, having been superseded by better, more up to date, and fully accessible information covering the back series. For routine regular statistical bulletins, the expected use, and the use advised by the responsible statisticians, is for the most recent full iteration in the series only.

This also corresponds with patterns of use and access of routine regular statistical releases, from evidence sourced from Google Analytics of the actual trends of access over time from the point of first release, to the point where the iteration is superseded by subsequent releases and onward.

Google Analytics – trends of views of routine regular statistics bulletins

Each iteration of the statistics bulletin sees the peak of user accesses immediately upon release, falling shortly after release, and then declining substantially upon the release of the subsequent iteration, falling to negligible levels soon after. This is consistent with expectation based on the superseding of prior iterations by the latest iteration released.

Furthermore, due to the size of the datasets involved in constructing these statistics bulletins, the historical underlying datasets are in many cases destructively updated. As such, in many cases it would not be possible to reconstruct the data as it stood previously at the time of release of earlier iterations of routine regular statistics bulletins. Data for prior time points will have been updated in relation to retrospection (where later updates are made to date references in the past, past the point of extraction and publication in prior iterations). Therefore, it may not be possible to recreate earlier iterations of statistics bulletins in a fully accessible format, as doing so would generate different results to those published at the time, and the results generated would instead be consistent with the latest available time series published in the most recently released iteration, which is already fully accessible. Accordingly, it would be redundant to attempt to do so, not serving any additional benefit to users, given earlier iterations have been superseded by the most recent iteration. Any such attempt would divert analytical resource away from priority work, and would result in outputs not consistent with those previously published, and it is for these reasons that DWP does not intend to do so.

In identifying accessible alternatives, it should be noted that, for most routine publications, the back series of data and tables to (and in many cases prior to) 23 September 2018 are already accessible via:

• Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) data tables – see the Non-Accessible Content section, for information about an issue with merged cells in our ODS tables

• Stat Xplore accessible underlying data and interactive tables and graphs. Stat Xplore is not published on GOV.UK and as such there is a separate accessibility statement for this tool on the Stat Xplore website at the link above.

In such cases, only the PDF bulletin release is not fully compliant with the accessibility requirements for the period. As such, this is mitigated by the fact the data during the period already meet the accessibility requirement. Some of the bulletins have HTML accessible publications for some duration within the period already, while others remain in a non-accessible PDF format.

This will be further mitigated by the future release of Examine a Stat, an interactive fully accessible tool, which will facilitate interactive bulletins recreating past time points (with the most up to date data including revisions, granularity, definitions and methodological approaches) in an accessible format, although this will not be feasible by 23 September 2020.

These points were taken into account when assessing the resource cost of reproducing the large volume of statistical bulletins published between 23 September 2018 and 23 September 2020 as being prohibitive where possible, and in many cases doing so is not possible. Even where possible, given the majority of the information within the statistical releases during this time is accessible, the benefit to users of making any such bulletins fully accessible would be small relative to the high resource cost of attempting to do so, and the impact to the ongoing delivery of DWP statistics. For these reasons DWP do not intend to proactively undertake further work to attempt to improve accessibility of legacy releases where possible. However, DWP will endeavour to do so, where feasible, for specific outputs upon request.

Ad hoc statistical releases

Ad hoc statistical releases are generally one-off, or short, finite run statistical releases. Accordingly, these will differ to the above in that they will not be superseded (in most cases) by more recently published information in a fully accessible format.

From 23 September 2020 onward, all newly published ad hoc statistical releases will fully meet accessibility legislation, being published in fully accessible HTML format with ODS accessible tables. Ad hoc statistical releases and ODS tables published prior to this time may not be fully accessible.

It is expected that the main use of ad hoc releases to be soon after the initial release, subsequently falling substantially in access, which would suggest a low user need for historic ad hoc statistical information.

With previously published ad hoc statistical releases, in many or most cases, the underlying data from which they had been compiled would be destructively updated, resulting in it not being possible to reproduce fully accessible versions of previously published ad hoc statistics with figures as they stood at the time. Figures deriving from currently held data would include retrospection from late updates, among other further changes and developments, and would therefore be different, representing the data for the period as it currently stands, and not as it stood at the time of publication. To produce such an output would not represent an accessible version of the previously published ad hoc, but would instead be a new different piece of work, which is not required within the legislation.

As a result, DWP has taken the decision not to proactively endeavour to improve accessibility where possible for previously published ad hoc statistical releases. However, DWP will endeavour to create more accessible versions of historical ad hoc statistical releases upon request, noting possible improvements to accessibility may be limited in many or most cases due to lack of data availability as it stood at the time of release of the ad hoc.

What to do if you have difficulty using our statistics

If you have difficulty using the statistics, contact: statistics.hopsupport@dwp.gov.uk

As part of providing this service, we may need to send you messages or documents. We’ll ask you how you want us to send messages or documents to you, but contact us if you need them in a different format.

Reporting accessibility problems with the statistics

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of our publications. If you find any problems that aren’t listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements, contact: statistics.hopsupport@dwp.gov.uk

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about the accessibility or our statistics

The Department for Work and Pensions is committed to making statistics accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

The statistical publications are partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below.

Non-accessible content

ODS tables

It should be noted that our ODS tables already largely meet legislative accessibility requirements. However, tables published prior to 23 September 2020 may have used merged cell formatting functionality for column headings and footnotes. For all releases after the 23 September 2020 this functionality will no longer be used to ensure content is accessible for all. In line with the treatment of historical releases we do not plan to update older documents, but will do so on request.

Disproportionate Burden

Not applicable.

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

Although all new iterations of routine regular statistics bulletins to be published from 23 September 2020 onward will fully meet the requirements under accessibility legislation, not all publications had their latest iteration published in accessible HTML format as of 23 September 2020. Although the data tables and interactive data were fully accessible, such iterations of publications released statistical commentary in PDF documents which do not meet WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria.

Ad hoc statistical releases published prior to 23 September 2020 similarly were published with fully accessible data tables, but some statistical commentary documents for these ad hoc releases were published as PDF documents which do not meet WCAG 2.1 AA success criteria.

Under WCAG 2.1 AA these PDF documents fail on:

• 1.1.1 Non-text content. Images in PDF documents may not have alternative text.
• 1.3.4 Orientation
• 1.4.1 Use of colour. Images within PDFs may not have used colour schemes fully meeting accessibility requirements
• 1.4.3 Contrast (minimum)
• 1.4.4 Resize text
• 1.4.6 Contrast (enhanced)
• 1.4.8 Visual presentation
• 1.4.11 Non-text contrast
• 1.4.12 Text spacing
• 2.4.10 Section Headings
• 2.5.3 Label in name
• 3.1.3 Unusual words

As it is anticipated that users should use the most recent iteration of routine regular statistics bulletins, outstanding issues will be resolved upon the release of the next iteration of these statistics bulletins. Upon request, older iterations where commentary was released as PDF may be made more accessible for users where feasible, noting the aforementioned reasons which limit the ability to make older iterations fully accessible.

On request, ad hoc statistical publications where commentary was released as PDF will be released in a more accessible format, where feasible, noting the aforementioned reasons which may limit or obstruct the ability to make previously published ad hoc statistical releases fully accessible.

Content that’s not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

We currently publish some interactive maps accompanying some statistical releases, which are currently not fully accessible. Interactive maps are outside the scope of the legislation. In due course this will be addressed by the future release of the Examine a Stat interactive tool, which will include interactive maps which are fully accessible, replacing or superseding the interactive maps currently available.

How we tested our publications

HTML and ODS outputs on GOV.UK were tested on checked for compliance with WCAG 2.1 AA.

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

Examine-a-Stat

Examine-a-Stat is an interactive statistical tool currently under development. This tool will be publicly accessible, and will allow the user to customise DWP’s statistical bulletins to suit their needs, while retaining the commentary, descriptions and key information they need to know to properly understand the data. Users will be able to view Official Statistics publications in as much or as little detail as they would like, with both figures and text adjusting to be relevant to the selected breakdown.

The department will incorporate other interfaces, such as those for users with less familiarity of DWP statistics, assisting them in finding data relevant to their interests. This tool will not be published on GOV.UK and will have its own accessibility statement.

Contact us

In the event of any issues in compliance with the accessibility requirement, users may contact DWP to notify us of these issues: statistics.hopsupport@dwp.gov.uk

Under the legislation, users may request information in an accessible format that has been excluded due to disproportionate burden pursuant to regulation 3(2) or regulation 6. Upon such a request, DWP must provide a response to a notification or request made by a person under this regulation within a reasonable period of time. In the event of non-compliance with paragraph (3) of the regulation, or a person is dissatisfied with the response received, the user may complain to the applicable enforcement body.

If the user is not happy with the response received, they can get help from the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS) in England Scotland and Wales. And the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (ECNI) in Northern Ireland. If the user feels the issue has still not been resolved, they can appeal to the EHRC (ECNI in Northern Ireland).

Annex A: Publications

DWP statisticians and producers of statistics are committed to producing accurate timely, high quality National and Official Statistics publications to inform government policy development and operational decision-making. DWP takes into account user needs and produces and disseminates its statistics in accordance with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics.

DWP National and Official Statistics are used by a range of users, including:

• DWP Ministers
• DWP policy and operational officials
• Ministers and officials in other government departments
• Parliament
• local authorities
• external interest groups
• the media and external commentators
• academics
• charities
• members of the public

There has always been an expectation that statistical publications and outputs are made accessible to the widest possible audience. This is not only in making statistical releases straightforward to understand, but also by ensuring the documents that we publish are accessible to those with disabilities, and work with computer software that assists those for whom an impairment makes reading our statistical content more difficult.

Further details on the department’s commitment to users of its official statistics are published in the DWP customer service and engagement strategy.

The department currently releases over 40 Official and National statistics series each year, as well as collaborating to support a number of cross-government publications. Further detail of types of official statistics is on the UK Statistics Authority website. A full list of DWP statistical publications can be found in this annex and publications are announced on the GOV.UK Statistics Release Calendar and published on the DWP Statistics GOV.UK page.

The department disseminates its statistics in a variety of ways, as for any set of statistics there could be a range of users accessing the data. The varied approach to disseminating statistics is in accordance with the department’s quality policy.

• first release statistical bulletins include simple headline findings, text and graphs. The statistics are put into context and include footnotes and caveats

• statistical tables provide what the department sees as the most important breakdowns meeting most user needs
• Stat-Xplore is an interactive open data tool to interrogate data where the user can build their own tables and graphs with full level of granularity available.
• interactive maps and dashboards enable the user to explore and customise certain DWP statistics. The statistics online visualisation tools have been viewed over 3,500 times this year through GOV.UK traffic

List of all current publications, contacts and teams, frequency of publications, designation (Experimental, Official or National)

Benefit Statistics

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# DWP Quarterly Benefit Statistics	Quarterly	National	The statistics in this publication are listed below this table.

A summary about the benefits administered by DWP, including:

• Attendance Allowance
• Bereavement Benefit
• Bereavement Support Benefit
• Carer’s Allowance
• Disability Living Allowance
• Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Incapacity Benefit
• Income Support
• Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
• Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Severe Disablement Allowance
• State Pension
• Pension Credit
• Widow’s Benefit

Children, Families and Bereavement

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Child Maintenance Service Statistics	Quarterly	Experimental	Statistics on cases processed under the 2012 statutory child maintenance scheme.
# Child Support Agency (CSA) Statistics	Quarterly	Experimental	Statistics on the CSA statutory child maintenance schemes and CSA case closures.
# Maternity Allowance	Quarterly	Official	Number of women claiming Maternity Allowance.
# Separated Families Population Statistics	Annual	Experimental	Estimates of the separated families’ population and their child maintenance arrangements. Analysis also shows separated families with no arrangement.

Employment Support Schemes

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Access to Work Recipients	Annual	Experimental	Statistics on the number of people who had Access to Work provision approved.
# DWP CFO European Social Fund (ESF) 2014 to 2020	Bi-annual	Experimental	Statistics on the European Social Fund (ESF) 2014 to 2020 employment programme operated by DWP as a co-financing organisation (CFO) in England.
# New Enterprise Allowance (NEA)	Bi-annual	Official	Statistics on NEA including number of starts with a business mentor, and the number of business starts.
# Work and Health Programme	Quarterly	Official	Statistics on people referred to and starting on the Work and Health Programme.

Health, Disability and Care

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Employment and Support Allowance (ESA): Outcomes of Work Capability Assessment	Quarterly	National	Work Capability Assessment outcomes for new ESA claims and incapacity benefits claims converted to ESA.
# The employment of disabled people	Annual	Official	Detailed analysis and break downs of the number of disabled people in employment.
# Personal Independence Payment (PIP)	Quarterly	Official	Includes number of claims in payment, new claim registrations, decisions and awards made.

Housing and Heating

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Cold weather payments	Weekly	Official	Estimated number of Cold Weather Payments and total amounts paid.
# Discretionary Housing Payments	Bi-annual	Official	Statistics on local authorities’ use of Discretionary Housing Payment funds.
# Housing Benefit Caseload	Quarterly	National	Number of Housing Benefit claimants.
# Housing Benefit (HB) Flows Data	Quarterly	Experimental	Numbers of HB claims beginning and ending.
# Housing Benefit Debt Recoveries	Bi-annual	National	Data on incorrectly overpaid Housing Benefit (formerly HB recoveries and fraud).
# Housing Benefit Speed of processing	Quarterly	Official	Measure of the average time it takes to process a new claim or a change in circumstance of an existing claimant.
# Winter Fuel Payment	Annual	National	Includes recipient and household data, and payments in EEA countries and Switzerland.

Income and Living Standards

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Family Resources Survey	Annual	National	Facts and figures about the incomes and living circumstances of households and families in the UK.
# Households below average income	Annual	National	Number and percentage of people living in low-income households in the UK.
# Income dynamics	Annual	Official	Data on changes in incomes in the UK including a measure of the extent to which people experience persistently low income.
# Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up	Annual	Official	Estimates of the take-up of the main income-related benefits in Great Britain.

Pensions and Older People

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Pensioners’ Incomes series	Annual	National	Annual statistics on pensioners’ incomes.
# Workplace pension participation and savings trends	Annual	Official	Workplace participation and saving trends, and estimates of the future impacts of automatic enrolment in them.

Spending, Fraud and Error

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Abstract of DWP Benefit Rate Statistics	Annual	National	Statistics on benefits, National Insurance contributions and indices of prices and earnings in Great Britain.
# Benefit Cap	Quarterly	Official (with Experimental on UC)	Statistics on households affected by the benefit cap.
# Fraud and Error in the Benefit System	Annual	National	Estimates of fraud and error levels in the benefit system in Great Britain.

Work and Unemployment

Publication	Frequency	Designation	Summary
# Alternative Claimant Count	Quarterly	Official	Number of people claiming unemployment related benefits.
# Benefit Sanctions Statistics	Quarterly	Experimental	Number of sanctions imposed on people who receive Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, or Universal Credit.
# Economic labour market status of individuals aged 50 and over, trends over time	Annual	Experimental	Statistics on the economic labour market status of individuals aged 50 and over.
# National Insurance Number (NINo) Allocations to adult overseas nationals	Quarterly, and annual for including nationality	Official	National Insurance number allocations by nationality at point of NINo registration of DWP benefit recipients.
# Universal Credit	Monthly (people) Quarterly (claims, starts and households)	Official	Number of people and households on Universal Credit, starts and claims made.