Guidance

Pensioners’ Incomes release strategy

Published 21 March 2024

© Crown copyright 2024

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensioners-incomes-release-strategy/pensioners-incomes-release-strategy

1. Introduction

Pensioners’ Incomes (PI) provides information on the levels, sources and distribution of pensioner’s income in the UK. It also examines the position of single pensioners and pensioner couples within the income distribution of the population as a whole.

This release strategy acts as the formal notice of changes to any future releases of the PI publication.

The release strategy highlights the potential release of new statistics within the publication and announces any other developments for future publications.

The 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. User Engagement

The PI publication team engage with users in the following ways:

  • Data and Publication Quality Assurance Groups
  • participated and presented at the Family Finance Survey Users conference in association with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and UK Data Service (UKDS)
  • provide responses to Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
  • team email: pensioners-incomes@dwp.gov.uk

3. Confirmed changes coming to PI statistics

Developments for financial year ending 2024

PI statistics are based on data from the Family Resources Survey (FRS) and any developments related to the FRS will be published in the FRS Release Strategy document. Developments so far include -

FRS boost

The boost to the FRS sample is under review, so we are proceeding from April 2023, on the basis of a return to a fieldwork target of achieving 20,000 households.

Grossing plans

We expect to receive UK population and private household estimates based on the 2021 Census (2022 for Scotland) later in 2024. This will include a back series of grossing factors from FYE 2013 to re-base the PI estimates from that year onwards.

Inclusion of Cost of Living payments in estimates of income

In November 2022 the Government announced additional support to families with several Cost of Living support schemes from Spring 2023, depending on family circumstances. These payments will be included in the PI estimates of income. The additional payments will be reflected in our analysis for FYE 2024 for publication in March 2025.

Future Developments

This section will be updated when changes for the next release of PI are announced.

PI statistics are based on data from the FRS and any developments related to the FRS will be published in the FRS Release Strategy document.

4. Feedback

We welcome feedback

If you have any comments or questions, please email:pensioners-incomes@dwp.gov.uk

ISBN: 978-1-78659-661-1

Note, our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation.

Back to top