Guidance

Uses and users: DWP benefits statistical summary

Updated 3 June 2026

1. Introduction

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publish a statistical summary document on a 6-monthly basis and related data via Stat-Xplore quarterly.

The DWP benefits statistical summary brings together key Accredited Official and Official Statistics on DWP administered benefits, including DWP benefit combinations. To provide a more complete picture of DWP responsibility, statistics on Housing Benefit (administered by local authorities) and Universal Credit are also included in the collection.

The DWP benefits statistics collection publishes data quarterly via Stat-Xplore, on the following benefits:

• Attendance Allowance (AA)
• Bereavement benefits (BB)
• Bereavement Support Payment (BSP)
• Carer’s Allowance (CA)
• Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
• Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Housing Benefit (HB)
• Housing Benefit flows
• Incapacity Benefit (IB)
• Income Support (IS)
• Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB)
• Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
• Pension Credit (PC)
• Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA)
• State Pension (SP)
• Widow’s Benefit (WB)

Each February and August, a summary document is also published, containing a high level summary of the latest Accredited Official and Official Statistics for the benefits listed above, and where relevant messages about:

• Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
• Universal Credit (UC)
• DWP benefit combinations

Alongside the statistical summary, there is additional information provided which enables the user to delve in to the detail. These are provided to the user via:

• Stat-Xplore – an online tool that allows the creation and download of customised statistical tables, and data visualisations through interactive charts - there is a Stat-Xplore user guide to help users
• old DWP datasets via NOMIS, however these stopped being updated in 2019 – related Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures are available on NOMIS
• separate ODS tables for Maternity Allowance

For the rest of this document, the DWP benefits statistics should be taken to include all the products and tables outlined above.

1.1 Known Uses of DWP benefit statistics

The statistical summary and accompanying Stat-Xplore datasets are used by DWP for:

• providing the evidence base, for public accountability and the historic public record, for assessing the impact of policy decisions
• transparency of monitoring trends in relation to policy context
• supporting Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Outside DWP, the internet based publication mechanism for the Summary means that we cannot understand all the varied uses of these numbers. However, through correspondence with external stakeholders and use of Google Analytics we do know that the Summary and Stat-Xplore datasets are used for:

• providing general information on the benefit system in Great Britain
• measuring government targets relating to DWP
• supporting the production of indices of deprivation in England, Wales and Scotland
• improving population estimates, especially at a small area level
• academic research
• information by devolved governments

2. Analysis of users

We periodically conduct an analysis of the users of our main benefit statistics through Google Analytics and through monitoring the types of emails we receive from users. There are two ways to access the Benefits data; via the statistical summary and attached data tables and via Stat-Xplore.

Statistical summary

Some of the known users of the statistical summary are other government departments, local authorities, charities, think tanks and universities. Analysis shows that as well as entering the summary from a search engine or directly through typing the web address, users also enter from Stat-Xplore.

Stat-Xplore

We are not currently able to see which users are accessing which datasets on Stat-Xplore but we are happy to hear from users about their experience of Stat-Xplore.

The team responsible for Stat-Xplore are developing methods to analyse the Stat-Xplore user logs in order to understand more about users’ behavioural patterns, while maintaining high standards of security and privacy. This process is early in the development phase but we anticipate when it is completed we will have access to more information about the users of the DWP benefit statistics data.

2.1 Valid Uses of DWP statistical summary

The summary can be used for:

• obtaining the definitive numbers of people claiming DWP benefits
• exploring the characteristics of those claiming benefits
• evaluating DWP programmes and benefits. However, users should be aware that administrative changes in the benefit system can and do affect the published numbers. Therefore, users should read footnotes carefully.

However, the numbers should not be used for:

• statistics on unemployment – here are a number of measures of unemployment, all of which are published by the Office for National Statistics. However, DWP statistics can provide additional details and context to support the main labour market statistics
• calculation of expenditure on benefits (by multiplication of caseloads and averages)

2.2 Areas of unmet user need

Customers (both within DWP and externally) sometimes request the following:

• more timely release of statistics. Accredited Official and Official Statistics are released around 6 months after the reference period. This is to allow for late notification of claims and processing time. This is called retrospection. Additionally, this comprehensive and expansive statistical release requires an extensive production window to facilitate the robust quality analysis required by Code of Practice.
• statistics relating to DWP process. For example, sometimes information on the number of changes of circumstances is requested. There is no readily available quality assured dataset regarding DWP administrative processing.

2.3 How to comment and get involved

DWP would like to hear your views on our statistical publications. If you use any of our statistics publications, we would be interested in hearing what you use them for and how well they meet your requirements. Please email DWP at benefits.statistics@dwp.gov.uk.

Updates to the DWP benefits statistics are published on the statistics collection page and in the “Welfare and Benefits” community on StatsUserNet.

In addition to these, DWP use a number of routes to seek user views. For example:

• Official Statistics consultations are run for large proposed changes – or example, in 2005 a consultation was held to change the headline data source for benefit statistics
• new statistics are developed in conjunction with groups of stakeholders to help understand and quality assure output
• monitor the usage of the GOV.UK website relating to DWP
• monitor ad hoc analysis requests

Ad hoc comments are also welcome. Please provide comments to: benefits.statistics@dwp.gov.uk.

For all other enquiries please contact the appropriate person using the list of contacts for DWP statistics list.