Guidance

Background information and methodology: Children in low income families: local area statistics

Updated 26 March 2026

1. Context

The children in low income families (CiLIF) statistics, provide information on the number and proportion of children living in Relative and Absolute low income Before and After Housing Costs by local area across the United Kingdom.

Statistics on the number of children (by age) and the proportion of children under 16 in low income families each year are published. Figures are calibrated to the Households Below Average Income (HBAI) survey estimates but provide more granular local area information not available from the HBAI for example, by local authority, parliamentary constituency and ward.

1a. New After Housing Costs (AHC) series

Following the successful completion of discovery work and a public consultation, After Housing Costs (Relative measure) local area child poverty statistics are published in this release for financial year ending (FYE) 2024 and FYE 2025. Further information is available below on the methodology deployed to develop these new AHC series across the UK. Figures prior to this are not available as the proportion of families with unknown housing costs is higher than the threshold for which reliable statistics can be derived.

1b. Change in HBAI methodology

As previously reported, following the successful completion of discovery work and a period of user engagement, this release (alongside the March 2025 release) calibrates figures to HBAI single-year UK estimates (instead of HBAI two or three year regional estimates in previous annual publications). There are revisions to the back-series at UK, regional and local area level due to changes in HBAI estimates as a result of an improved approach to using administrative data in place of Family Resources Survey (FRS) responses, and a change to the absolute low-income reference year (moving from FYE 2011 to FYE 2025). Further information is available in the HBAI statistics.

2. Methodology

The methodology underpinning these statistics incorporates a number of fundamental principles:

• analyses of Universal Credit, Housing Benefit and Tax Credit household data alongside Child Benefit data to establish families’ relationships and composition

• derivation of families’ gross income Before and After Housing Costs and equivalisation to account for family size and composition

• calibration to HBAI 1-year UK estimates by work-status to ensure consistency of UK level statistics in counts of children in low-income

• calculation of rates for under 16s, using mid-year population estimates for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

2a. Identifying family relationships and composition

Statistics are derived from the database “RAPID” (Registration and Population Interaction Database) which provides a single coherent view of citizens’ interactions with DWP and HMRC within a tax year. Relationships are built from analyses of household benefits. That is, information on sole or joint claimants of Universal Credit, Tax Credits and Housing Benefits payments which is used to determine claimant and partner information. When combined with Child Benefit claimant data, this view provides a measure of the family unit.

The methodology accounts for changes in family composition throughout the year (for example re-partnering, multiple partners, becoming a sole parent) by tracking these changes in benefit claims and the associated personal income of claimants and partners.

2b. Gross Income (Before Housing Costs)

The number of children in families (not households), Before Housing Costs (BHC) in both Absolute (FYE 2025 index) and Relative terms is derived from analyses of family income over the entire tax year.

Income is defined as Gross Personal Income from benefits or tax credits, from employment and self-employment, and from occupational pensions.

This is not the same as HBAI income measures, but for the purposes of looking at the distribution of family income across local areas, it offers a consistent approach that captures the main income streams.

During 2022 to 2024 the government announced and implemented additional support to families with several cost-of-living support schemes, depending on peoples’ circumstances. These family income streams are included in the derivation of the statistics.

2c. Gross Income (After Housing Costs)

Following the successful completion of discovery work and a consultation paper , After Housing Costs (AHC) (Relative measure) local area child poverty statistics are published in this release for FYE 2024 and FYE 2025. The table below shows the data sources used to establish a families’ housing costs for each household benefit in scope for the methodology. In FYE 2025, families on Universal Credit accounted for 97%, Housing Benefit 1%, and Tax Credits 2%. Of those on Universal Credit, 71% had recorded housing costs in the private or social rented sector, 15% had a tenure type showing they lived with relatives or did not own or rent a property and for whom zero housing costs are assumed, and 12% are owner occupiers / shared ownership. For this cohort, housing costs are not recorded in the available administrative data. Instead, a proxy has been used (26% of median Private Rental Sector (PRS) rents in their local area, Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA)) which estimates the Interest-only (not capital) element of mortgage payments.

Benefit type	Housing type	Housing costs
Universal Credit	Private and Social rented	Housing costs as reported
Universal Credit	Living with relatives / not owned or rented	Assumed no housing costs
Universal Credit	Owner occupier / shared ownership	Unknown / not recorded. Estimated at 26% of median PRS for LSOA, Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA),Local Authority (LA).
Housing Benefit	Private and Social rented	Housing costs as reported
Tax Credits	Assumed owner occupier / shared ownership	Unknown / not recorded. Estimated at 26% of median PRS for LSOA,MSOA,LA.

2d. Scottish Child Payment and PAYE records in FYE 2025

Scottish Child Payment (SCP) began in February 2021 for households with children under the age of six. A temporary bridging payment for households with school age children in receipt of free school meals, remained in place until the second phase was implemented in November 2022. This phase extended eligibility to under 16 year olds from 14 November 2022. SCP is paid every four weeks to help towards the costs of looking after each child under 16 for families who get certain benefits.

In consultation with Scottish Government analysts, and in the absence of a data feed for SCP, the CiLIF methodology has been adapted for the March 2025 publication to now include imputed receipt of SCP for eligible families as an income stream.

Families eligible for SCP are those already in receipt of other income-related benefits. The methodology appends SCP income to families’ gross annual income totals and accounts for the number and age of children in the family and the proportion of the year the family claims income-related benefits.

Payment amounts are modelled as:

• FYE 2022 under 6 year olds: £10 per week per child

• FYE 2023 under 6 year olds paid at £20 per week to November 2022 — from December 2022 payments were extended to those under 16 year olds and the payment increased to £25 per week

• FYE 2024 all under 16 year olds, paid at £25 per week

The imputation methodology assumes that every family eligible for SCP claims it i.e. that the take-up rate is 100%. This contrasts with the published SCP take-up rates which show that for children aged under 6 in FYE 2024 is 97% and for children aged 6 to under 16 in FYE 2024 is 85%.

For FYE 2025 only, Real-Time employment earnings data has been used to account for under-reporting of PAYE information on the source RAPID dataset.

2e. Equivalisation

In order to allow comparisons of the living standards of different types of households, income is adjusted to account for variations in the size and composition of the households in a process known as equivalisation. This assumes that all individuals in the household benefit equally from the combined income of the household. Thus, all members of any one household will appear at the same point in the income distribution.

Equivalence scales conventionally take an adult couple without children as the reference point, with an equivalence value of one. The process then increases relatively the income of single person households (since their incomes are divided by a value of less than one) and reduces relatively the incomes of households with 3 or more persons, which have an equivalence value of greater than one.

2f. Calibration

For previous publications of CiLIF statistics up to and including March 2024, statistics were calibrated to the 3 year (2 years for periods including 2020 and 2021) regional HBAI totals (by work status) to ensure consistency across published statistics. Following a period of discovery and user engagement, from the March 2025 publication (and for the back-series), CiLIF statistics are now calibrated only to the 1 year UK HBAI totals (by work status).

This change has been made to ensure that the granular family-level administrative data is fully exploited to determine where children in the lowest income families live across the UK. The CiLIF statistics provides a proxy estimate of local child poverty using administrative data sources and will not produce the same regional level estimates as HBAI survey estimates.

There are revisions to the back-series at UK, regional and local area level due to changes in HBAI estimates as a result of an improved approach to using administrative data in place of FRS survey responses, and a change to the absolute low-income reference year (moving from FYE 2011 to FYE 2025). Further information is available in the HBAI statistics.

2g. Population Rates

Rates have been derived by dividing the number of children aged 0 to 15 in low income families by the number of all children aged 0 to 15 (sourced from latest available mid-year population estimates).

For England and Wales, mid-2024 population estimates for country, local authority, Westminster parliamentary constituency and ward have been used to derive child poverty rates for FYE 2025.

For Scotland, mid-2024 population estimates for country and local authority have been used to derive child poverty rates for FYE 2025. For Westminster parliamentary constituency and ward, mid-2022 population estimates are used as a proxy for FYE 2025 child poverty rates.

For Northern Ireland, mid-2024 population estimates for country, local authority and Westminster parliamentary constituency have been used to derive child poverty rates for FYE 2025. Population estimates at ward level are not available for latest geographical boundaries, and hence child poverty rates have not been derived in the published tables.

Percentages are shown for children aged under 16 due to the complexity in identifying 16 to 19 year olds defined as child dependents in the population estimates.

Revisions to population estimates may be published later in the year. Please note that published rates are, therefore, subject to subsequent revision.

3. Data Sources

These statistics draw data from the Registration and Population Interaction Database (RAPID) which provides a single coherent view of citizens’ interactions with DWP and HMRC within a tax year for the UK. RAPID provides a basis for analyses of children, the family unit, and gross personal incomes (benefits/tax credits, employment, self-employment, occupational pensions) from which estimates of the number of children in low income families can be derived calibrated to HBAI regional estimates on Absolute and Relative definitions.

RAPID is based on 100% extracts of various DWP benefit systems and is supplemented with 100% data extracts from HMRC systems. RAPID collates information on individual activities (and the income generated from those activities) within each tax year, including benefit, employment and in-work benefit interactions, for example Tax Credits and Housing Benefit. Children have been identified from HMRC Child Benefit scans.

4. Definitions

Term	Definition
Children	Dependent individuals aged under 16; or aged 16 to 19 in full-time non-advanced education.
Family	A single adult; or a married or cohabitating couple; or a Civil Partnership; where one adult is claiming Child Benefit and other DWP and HMRC household benefits and tax credits, and any dependent children.
Lone Parent	A single adult who is claiming Child Benefit and other DWP/HMRC household benefits/tax credits, and dependent children.
Low income	Gross income measure is Before Housing Costs (BHC) and includes contributions from earning, state support and pensions. Equivalisation adjusts incomes for household size and composition, taking an adult couple with no children as the reference point. For example, the process of equivalisation would adjust the income of a single person upwards, so their income can be compared directly to the standard of living for a Couple.
In-work	A family who, combined, have been in employment or self-employment for over 26 weeks of the year.
Out-of-work	A family who, combined, have been in employment or self-employment for under 26 weeks of the year.
Age of child	Child age is derived as the duration from Date of Birth (DoB) to 31 March in each year. For FYE 2025, analyses of family relationships and income during that year are linked to child ages as at 31 March 2025.

Those in absolute low income have their net equivalised income below 60% of the FYE 2025 median income adjusted for inflation.

Those in relative low income have their net equivalised disposable household income below a threshold set at 60% of median income.

Comparisons in the Statistical Bulletin focus primarily on relative low income as this is the preferred measure amongst the majority of users. However, the full range of statistics for Relative and Absolute low income are available in the accompanying tables and Stat-Xplore.

4a. Building Local Areas

Consistent with DWP’s approach to building local area statistics, Census Output Area (COA21) is used as the building block to derive standard geographies including:

• Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) GB only
• Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) GB only
• Ward
• Local Authority (LA)
• Westminster Parliamentary Constituency

5. Revisions

There are revisions to the back-series at UK, regional and local area level due to changes in HBAI estimates as a result of an improved approach to using administrative data in place of FRS survey responses, and a change to the absolute low-income reference year (moving from FYE 2011 to FYE 2025).

6. Use of the Statistics

6a. General

Uses:

• to meet the demand from users for local estimates of the Before and After Housing Costs number and proportion of children living in low income families to enable strategic decision making and allocation of services at local levels
• to compare and contrast changes in the number and proportion of children in low-income families across local areas within the same country
• to do so in a way that accounts for the rollout of Universal Credit to produce consistent statistics

Strengths:

• provide local area insights for low level geographies
• whilst the HBAI estimates are built from a survey of households, these administrative statistics covering the family unit, are derived from granular analyses of multiple administrative sources of benefit, tax credit, housing costs, and earnings data

Limitations:

• the statistics are a measure of children and cannot be used to obtain the number of low-income families.
• a family must have claimed Child Benefit and at least one other household benefit (Universal Credit, tax credits or Housing Benefit) at any point in the year to be classed as low income in these statistics.
• income is Before and After Housing Costs and is equivalised to adjust for family size and composition. Income is defined as Gross Personal Income from benefits/tax credits, from employment and self-employment, and from occupational pensions. This is not the same as HBAI income measures, but for the purposes of looking at the distribution of family income across local areas, it offers a consistent approach that captures the main income streams
• relationships are built from analyses of household benefits in payment. That is, information on sole or joint claimants of Universal Credit, Tax Credits and Housing Benefits which is used to determine claimant and partner information. When combined with Child Benefit claimant data, this view provides a measure of the family unit
• the statistics are not directly comparable with the predecessor of these statistics produced by HMRC

6b. When to use CiLIF or HBAI regional statistics

Both Households below average income (HBAI) statistics and Children in low income families: local area statistics publish regional level statistics for children in low income Before and After Housing Costs.

Users should use HBAI for UK and regional level statistics to provide consistent insights for low-income households across children, working age and pensioners.

Users should consider the most appropriate series for regional level low-income households for children only, and recognise the use of 3 year averages for HBAI regional estimates which differ from the regional estimates for CiLIF which are derived from 1 year UK HBAI estimates. CiLIF is the recommended source for single year regional figures.

Users should use CiLIF for sub-regional, local and small area comparisons of the number and proportion of children in low income, Before and After Housing Costs.

Key differences in HBAI and CiLIF regional statistics

There are differences in the regional Before and After Housing Costs statistics across publications. These arise because:

1. CiLIF statistics are sourced from administrative data on families’ income. They provide estimates of where (across the UK) the poorest children live based on families’ income and composition. HBAI statistics are sourced from the FRS derived from households survey responses. Both publications Background and Methodology documents provide detailed information on how the statistics are derived.

2. 16 to 19 year old dependents are excluded in CiLIF published tables on counts and rates of children in low-income as an administrative data source for the total number of dependent children in this age range is not available. Counts for 16 to 19 year old dependents identified in CiLIF are available in the CiLIF Stat-Xplore dataset. The FRS identifies all dependent 16 to 19 year olds in the household, and these are included in the HBAI statistics.

3. HBAI uses 3-year averages to derive regional estimates, whereas CiLIF uses the 1-year UK estimate to determine regional estimates from administrative data.

The following table explains some scenarios for when to use HBAI or CiLIF regional estimates:

If interested in:	Use:
All households, children, working age and/or pensioner low-income statistics. Low-income statistics for any of the above three groups on their own or for a comparison across the groups, UK or regional level.	Households Below Average Income (HBAI) publication: 3 year averages for regional figures, Before and After Housing Costs, Relative and Absolute measures, Definition of children includes 16 to 19 year old dependents.
Children in low income regional estimates	Consider the most appropriate series for regional level low-income households for children only, and recognise the use of 3 year averages for HBAI regional estimates which differ from the regional estimates for CiLIF which are derived from 1 year UK HBAI estimates. CiLIF is the recommended source for single year regional figures. Separate to CiLIF, also note that survey statistics published by Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have been classified as Official Statistics in Development to signal that the changes introduce uncertainty that is acute for estimates below UK level which needs to be reflected in their Official Statistics reporting.
Children in low income for a geography lower than region: for example local authority, Westminster parliamentary constituency or ward, Before and After Housing Costs, Counts and Rates 0 to 15 year olds	Children in low-income families (CiLIF) publication, single in-year figures sourced from administrative data, Relative and Absolute measures, children under 16s only in Bulletin and Tables; data for 16 to 19 year old dependents is available on Stat-Xplore.
Comparison of children in low income for geographies lower than region to the regional total, Before and After Housing Costs, counts and rates 0 to 15 year olds	CiLIF publication. CiLIF regional totals differ from HBAI totals as the former is sourced from administrative data on families income and the latter from the Family Resources Survey. Comparisons of a regions’ small area statistics against the regional total should be made via CiLIF to ensure that component parts sum to regional totals.

6c. History

These statistics replace earlier Official Statistics previously published by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Children in out-of-work benefit households and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) Children in low-income families local measure.In December 2018, DWP and HMRC published their respective releases with a commitment to combine releases going forward.

The new combined set of statistics provide a more coherent picture of children in low income families at a local level across the United Kingdom.

7. Status

These statistics are badged as Official Statistics.

8. Feedback

Email stats.consultation-2018@dwp.gov.uk with feedback and queries about the statistics.

9. Related Statistics

Estimates of numbers in low income in a single year from Households Below Average Income are available.

Other related DWP statistics include:

• DWP Family Resources Survey

• DWP Income Dynamics

Indices of multiple deprivation by country are available:

• English Indices of Deprivation

• Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation

• Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation

Details of other National and Official Statistics produced by the Department for Work and Pensions can be found on the DWP statistics homepage with a schedule of statistical releases over the next 12 months and a list of the most recent releases.

In accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, all DWP National Statistics are announced in the government statistics calendar.