Guidance

Family Resources Survey: release strategy

Updated 29 January 2026

1. Introduction

This release strategy acts as the formal notice of proposed changes to future releases of the Family Resources Survey (FRS) publication.

The strategy highlights the confirmed changes to the FRS questionnaire and dataset, describes the potential release of new statistics within the publication and announces any other developments.

The FRS Release Strategy is not a static document; it will be updated as plans develop, to provide users with details of latest developments.

The development of these statistics follows the Department for Work and Pension’s statistical work programme.

2. Publications based on the FRS

The FRS is the basis for several statistical publications and the changes outlined here will be reflected as necessary in these publications in the future.

Households Below Average Income (HBAI)

This HBAI publication uses household disposable incomes, adjusted for household size and composition, as a proxy for material living standards or, more precisely, for the level of consumption of goods and services that people could attain given the disposable income of the household in which they live.

Pensioners’ Incomes Statistics

The FRS and HBAI datasets are used in the Pensioners’ Incomes Statistics, the Department’s analysis of trends in components and levels of pensioners’ incomes.

Income-Related Benefits: Estimates of Take-Up

The FRS provides information about people’s circumstances, which is used to estimate numbers of people who are not claiming benefits to which they may be entitled. The statistics are based on a combination of administrative and survey data.

Children in Low Income Families (CiLIF)

Children in Low Income Families (CiLIF) statistics report the number and proportion of children in low‑income families by local area across the UK. CiLIF is calibrated to regional Households Below Average Income (HBAI) estimates, which are derived from the FRS.

Separated Families statistics

Official statistics relating to separated families and their child maintenance arrangements.

Below Average Resources

DWP are developing a new additional poverty measure named ‘Below Average Resources’ (BAR) based on the approach proposed by the Social Metrics Commission (SMC) and using FRS data.

DWP sought user feedback on developing the new measure through an analytical consultation running from 18 January to 11 April 2024. The consultation response was published in January 2025, alongside the latest Official Statistics in Development publication in the BAR series. The publication included data for the financial year ending 2023 but did not include any substantial changes to the methodology for the measure compared to the initial publication.

Other government departments

The Department for Communities Northern Ireland uses the FRS to produce similar reports to those from DWP, which are focused on Northern Ireland.

In-depth analysis of FRS-based HBAI data for Scotland can be found in the Scottish Government report on Poverty and income inequality statistics in Scotland.

In-depth analysis of relative income poverty in Wales, based on HBAI data, can be found on the Relative income poverty page of the Welsh Government website, which also has links to material deprivation analysis.

3. User engagement

The FRS team within DWP engages with users in the following ways:

• Questionnaire Consultation

• Data and Publication Quality Assurance Groups

• Expert Advisory Group consultations

• Senior Stakeholder Group engagement

• The annual Family Finance Survey Users conference, run in association with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and UK Data Service (UKDS)

• StatsUserNetwork – the online discussion forum run by the Office of National Statistics for users and producers of Official Statistics

• A training module, Getting started with the Family Resources Survey (FRS), is available via the UKDS

• Responses to Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information requests

• Team email – team.frs@dwp.gov.uk for general enquiries

User consultation

Analysts, both within DWP and other government departments such as His Majesty’s Treasury (HMT) and His Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC); and the devolved administrations are part of our quality assurance group. These expert users have been consulted on changes to the FRS questionnaire, via a well-established Questionnaire Consultation procedure. An assessment of the quality of data that is derived from the survey responses is then conducted with this quality assurance group of subject matter experts.

DWP has established an Expert Advisory Group on Survey-based Income Statistics to support its development work. The purpose of the Group is to provide advice to DWP’s Chief Statistician on:

• future plans to implement the integration of administrative data into the FRS and related outputs

• other technical issues as they arise

• discovery work on methodology changes to existing statistics

Members of the Group include frequent users of the FRS and related outputs, including: academic experts, users from third-sector organisations and those providing methodology input from the Office for National Statistics.

4. Changes coming to FRS statistics

Developments in survey year 2024 to 2025

Developments to data collected in survey year 2024 to 2025 are expected to be published on 26 March 2026.

Family Resources Survey (FRS) sample size

The fieldwork target for 2024 to 2025 was an achieved sample of 20,000 households. However, response rates have continued to present challenges. A key issue has been the recruitment and retention of interviewers, alongside increasing rates of respondent refusal and respondent apathy. As a result, the final achieved sample for 2024 to 2025 is 16,300 households.

Transformative use of DWP administrative data

FRS respondents were first asked for consent to link their survey responses to administrative records starting in 2007. Since June 2018, all  FRS processing in Great Britain, including data linking, has been carried out on the basis that it is necessary for the department to carry out its functions as a public body. After many years of development work, we can now replace the majority of survey responses for state benefits with information from administrative records.

This is a change to the current approach. In addition to improving the accuracy of the FRS dataset by using administrative records, to edit benefit amounts where the respondent has said that they receive (major) state benefits (beyond UC), we will also integrate administrative data for respondents who did not report receipt in the survey. Benefit records will be added to the FRS dataset where there is a linked state benefit record in administrative data. As such, this will reduce the underreporting of benefits that is currently seen in the FRS data and improve data quality.

Impact of integrating administrative data into the FRS and related outputs

As previously announced, benefits administrative data will be integrated into the FRS to replace survey responses for the major DWP and HMRC benefits. This update will apply from 2018/19 onwards, reflecting the approach noted above. Changes to the back series will be implemented in two stages:

• on 26 March 2026, alongside publication of the new 2024/25 data, we will release the improved datasets and estimates for 2021/22 to 2023/24.

• in Summer 2026, we will publish updated datasets and estimates for 2018/19 to 2020/21 inclusive.

Given the structural break and improvement in quality of the data, we previously announced that HBAI would review the reference date for the absolute low-income measure (currently 2010 to 2011). As announced in the HBAI release strategy, the reference year will change to be 2024 to 2025.

Postponement of population back-series until March 2027

A previously announced delay to the release of ONS’ ‘2022-based Household Projections’ for England, derived from the 2021 Census, means that we will not release a back series of revised estimates using 2021 Census-based population data in March 2026. We have taken the decision to delay work on this, with statistical revisions being published in March 2027.

Deferral of the revised grossing factors for 2024 to 2025

We had previously announced that with the integration of administrative data into the FRS we would include new control totals for DWP benefits in our grossing regime. This was better to account for benefit receipt across the population.

We are unable to introduce this improvement for the March 2026 publication because some required inputs have yet to be fully evaluated. We will continue to progress this work for future releases.

Grossing for FRS 2024 to 2025 will therefore follow the same approach as the 2023 to 2024 survey year, continuing to use population estimates which have their basis in the 2011 Census.

Revised outputs for Education variable EDUCQUAL on historical FRS datasets 

During the investigation of the issues identified with the EDUCQUAL variable it was found that these issues were present for earlier survey years.

These investigations are now concluded and as such DWP will receive revised EDUCQUAL (formerly DVHIQUAL) values for the 2021 to 2022 survey year. The new release will incorporate the corrected values. Prior years will not be adjusted, due to the data deletion policy under the governance of UK GDPR.

Savings and investment bands

In the previous two years Savings and Investment tables [7.9, 7.10, 7.11 and 7.12] showing monetary bands were published as two variations. Those with suffix ‘a’ showed the original savings bands, while those with suffix ‘b’ showed the revised bands, to allow consistency with earlier years for users. From 2024 to 2025 only the new savings bands will be used.

Questionnaire changes approved in questionnaire consultation

Changes on specific topics were approved and implemented in the FRS 2024 to 2025 questionnaire following the annual consultation exercise. These focus on specific topics to improve the understanding of respondents’ circumstances, improve data quality through better informed data processing decisions, and to collect information to support future policy analysis.

We have now completed evaluation and quality assurance, and this information will be released in the FRS 2024 to 2025 dataset, and made available through the Department’s Stat Xplore online tool.

A brief description of the new questions and approach are given below:

• Marital Status

The GSS harmonisation team have updated their approach to marital status. The questionnaire has been changed accordingly, to harmonise with other major surveys and the Census. 

• Collective Defined Contribution Pensions

Collective Defined Contribution (CDC) pension schemes are being introduced and are likely to become a material source of pension wealth for some individuals in the future. Collecting data on new CDC type pension schemes, will help to show the number of employees participating in these schemes.

• Council Tax

This change improves survey efficiency by removing unnecessary interview questions. Council Tax Band will no longer be collected during the interview and will instead be added manually using data from the Valuation Office Agency and the Scottish Assessors, with information initially entered manually from the VOA and SA websites.

Other Council Tax‑related questions removed from the interview will be imputed during data validation using the Council Tax Band variable and other survey responses, following the existing approach used by the HBAI team.

• Childcare Attendance

This supplements existing questions asking about childcare attendance, to confirm whether the associated cost is for a typical term-time week or a school holiday. Capturing this additional information reduces the risk of under or overestimating the prevalence and costs of childcare.

• Removal of Class 2 National Insurance Contributions (NICs)

It was announced in Autumn Statement 2023 that from April 2024 self-employed people will no longer be required to pay Class 2 NICs. This section of the questionnaire has therefore been removed. The associated change, reducing the rates of Class 4 NICs payable, will also be taken account of in question instructions and processing of responses.

Below Average Resources (BAR) publication update

We will review the impact of the changes to the Family Resources Survey and Households Below Average Income statistics outlined above before producing further updates to the Below Average Resources Official Statistics in Development. This means we will not be publishing a standalone update to BAR to include data for the Financial Year Ending 2024. We will first wait to review the impact of the full revised HBAI back series post the Summer 2026 update.

Developments in survey year 2025 to 2026

Developments to data collected in survey year 2025 to 2026 are expected to be published in March 2027.

Family Resources Survey (FRS) sample size

We are proceeding from April 2025, with a fieldwork target of achieving 20,000 households.

Plans to produce a back series of grossing factors

We will bring our grossing into alignment with Census 2021 (2022 for Scotland) population figures. We will also produce a single new back series of revised estimates using Census-based population data.

These changes will affect all FRS-based statistics.

Council Tax Band

In a further development to the removal of the need to ask council tax band at interview, an automated read-in of council tax band, from VOA datasets for England and Wales has been trialled. This will now apply as business-as-usual for processing of the 2025 to 2026 survey data.

Questionnaire changes approved in questionnaire consultation

Changes on specific topics were approved and implemented for the FRS 2025 to 2026 questionnaire following the annual questionnaire consultation exercise. These focus on specific topics to improve the understanding of respondents’ circumstances, improve data quality through better informed data processing decisions, and to collect information to support future policy analysis.

These questions are expected to produce useful data that can be delivered to users through additional variables on the FRS 2025 to 2026 dataset immediately after publication in March 2027. New variables are subject to rigorous quality assurance processes before being released.

A brief description of the new questions and approach are given below:

• Revision to ‘number of food parcels from food banks’ question

We are removing the questions asking for ‘number of food parcels received’ in the last 30 days and 12 months, as this was poorly answered. These have been replaced by a simpler, banded-frequency question for ‘how often parcels received from a food bank’ in the last 12 months, with options such as ‘two or three times in the last year’. This aims to improve our understanding of frequent food bank use (for the purpose of obtaining emergency food) and to help us evaluate changes to food parcel dependence.

• Additional questions on whether a child maintenance arrangement is working

Previously all resident parents were asked how well their child maintenance arrangement is working for them. This question is now also asked to non-resident parents. Additionally, if either the resident parent or the non-resident parent indicates their arrangement is not working, then a follow-up question will ask why not. These changes will allow the Child Maintenance Service to develop a better understanding of the child maintenance landscape in separated families.

5. Other Developments    

Continued integration of administrative data into the FRS and related outputs 

As outlined in the DWP Statistical Work Programme (section 2.4). The department is committed to transforming its surveys through the integration of administrative data.

A technical report on FRS transformation, with illustrative results for DWP benefits, was published in March 2024. This demonstrates the combined positive effects of replacing survey responses with administrative records, imputation for unlinked respondents, and revised grossing on FRS estimates.

As noted above benefits administrative data will be integrated into the FRS to replace survey responses for the major DWP and HMRC benefits for the first time in March 2026.

We continue to research the integration of HMRC PAYE and Self-Assessment data, and other administrative sources.

6. Feedback

We welcome feedback.

Lead Statistician: M A Vaughan

Email: team.frs@dwp.gov.uk