Research and analysis

Employment and Support Allowance: outstanding claims at 31 May 2021

Published 27 July 2021

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

© Crown copyright 2021

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/employment-and-support-allowance-outstanding-claims-at-31-may-2021/employment-and-support-allowance-outstanding-claims-at-31-may-2021

Policy background and introduction

Employment Support Allowance (ESA) was introduced in October 2008. ESA gives you money to help with living costs if you have a disability or a health condition that affects how much you can work.

Since 27 January 2021, all new claims for ESA are now to New Style ESA (NSESA), which is based on a claimant’s National Insurance Contributions. You can apply for ‘new style’ Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) if you’re under State Pension age and you have a disability or health condition that affects how much you can work. NSESA entitlement lasts for 365 days unless the claimant has been placed in the support group (SG) by that date. On NSESA there is no time limit for individuals allocated to the SG.

Purpose of the statistics

This publication presents Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) management information on ESA claims that are outstanding as of May 2021.

ESA outstanding claims

ESA and NSESA claims are “outstanding” if they have been received into the department and have not yet been processed.

DWP management information shows as of 31 May 2021 there were around 15,300[footnote 1] outstanding NSESA claims.

As of 30 June 2021 there were 15,000[footnote 2] outstanding NSESA claims.

For context, there were 1,869,200 ESA and NSESA claimants as of November 2020, the latest available published data[footnote 3].

Notes about the data

The data used for outstanding claims is management information. The figures are changing rapidly as cases continue to be processed.

Source: DWP management information from CamLite[footnote 4] as of 31 May 2021 and 30 June 2021.

Definitions and terminology within the statistics

Outstanding claims

This refers to the number of ESA New Claims that have been received into the department and have not yet been processed at the end of the reporting period (including unregistered post).

Unregistered post

This refers to any clerical claims not yet registered on our systems.

Ad-hoc statistics

This is a one-off statistical publication. It is published in the interest of transparency and is not part of our regular official statistics release for ESA.

Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics

The Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code) is built around 3 main concepts, or pillars:

  • trustworthiness – this is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics
  • quality – is about using data and methods that produce assured statistics
  • value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs for information

The following explains how we have applied the pillars of the Code in a proportionate way.

Trustworthiness

The figures are based on management information supplied through the department’s computer system, CamLite, that is used to register claims following which it is then recorded onto JSAPS to administer the benefit system. This system allows consistent and efficient recording of ESA claims.

To support the management of departmental business, figures have been seen in advance by ministers and officials. This is in line with the Code, where pre-release access does not apply for releases based on routine management information – as covered in paragraph 3.6 of the National Statistician’s guidance.

Quality

The management information presented on outstanding claims is taken from the computer system used to register claims. Quality assurance processes are built in the design of business rules used for producing the figures.

Value

In publishing this data, we aim to support the information needs of society, parliamentarians and stakeholders.

Where to find out more

You can find out more about ESA in the following publication:

Contact information

For press enquiries, contact DWP Press Office on: 0203 267 5144.

  1. Rounded to the nearest 100. ↩

  2. Rounded to the nearest 100. ↩

  3. Stat-Xplore (ESA) – an online tool for exploring some of DWP’s main statistics. ↩

  4. CAMLite is a system which pulls information from other DWP computer systems. ↩

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