DWP benefits statistics: August 2022
Statistics on the main benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
Documents
Details
This is a quarterly National Statistics release of the main DWP-administered benefits via Stat-Xplore or supplementary tables where appropriate.
August 2022 release of IIDB statistics
Some anomalies in the “Assessments in Payment” dataset have been identified within the latest Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) release – a data deficiency is causing issues with the number of “unknown” cases for average values in the latest data. As a result, the measure “Weekly Amount (mean)” and field “Average weekly amount (bands)” on Stat-Xplore (released on 16 August 2022) will be temporarily suspended.
The issue is currently being investigated and we will update users when new figures are released. The remainder of IIDB statistics on Stat-Xplore have not been impacted and will remain available.
Impact of Scottish devolution: changes to the presentation of statistics
The devolution of social security benefits to the Scottish Government is beginning to impact DWP statistics, where benefit administration is moving from DWP to the Scottish Government. As this change takes place, for a transitional period, Social Security Scotland will administer new claims and DWP will continue to administer existing claims under an agency agreement. DWP will no longer hold a complete count of the number of claimants across Great Britain.
Our DWP benefit statistics statistical summaries will now focus on DLA and PIP claims where policy ownership has been retained by DWP. Figures, charts and narratives will primarily reflect England, Wales and any unknown or abroad claims. The residual count of DLA claims in Scotland will be provided for information only.
To reflect these changes, on Stat-Xplore we have added a new split to DLA geography fields to provide breakdowns based on policy ownership. Users of these statistics should make data selections based on these policy ownership lines.
Statistics showing the number of applications and awards to the new Child Disability Payment have been released by Scottish Government. Similar statistics for Adult Disability Payment covering its initial roll out phase are also available.
Please refer to our background information note for more information on Scottish devolution.
Housing Benefit (HB) dataset: revision to previously published figures
We have introduced methodological changes in how some of our HB statistics are categorised, and some outcomes have changed in our published statistics.
Please note, at August 2022 changes were made to the following fields, with new revised data presented from April 2018:
- Passported Benefit Status
- Employment Status
- Removal of Spare Room Subsidy – Spare Room Subsidy Indicator
- Removal of Spare Room Subsidy – Number of Spare Rooms
- Removal of Spare Room Subsidy – Weekly Spare Room Reduction Amount bands
- Age
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Client Type
- Gender
Following a policy change, we recently discovered that the passporting indicator on Housing Benefit statistics had been incorrectly recording outcomes for a section of claimants who receive Housing Benefit and Universal Credit at the same time. The correct outcome should have been “Passported: In receipt of Universal Credit.”
We have now fixed this issue, but in doing so, other variables were affected where the visible presence of a Universal Credit claim changes some outcomes.
An earlier methodological change to make better use of evidence from the Customer Information System has also been applied to datasets between April 2018 and May 2020.
Please refer to our background information note for more information about these changes. Further details on HB methodology can be found in our methodology statement.
Housing Benefit: Hackney Borough Council data and Gloucester City Council
Housing benefit data covering the periods November 2020 to July 2021 was affected by an interruption in the supply of data from Hackney Borough council.
Hackney Borough Council have now resumed the supply of Housing Benefit data to DWP. Data from August 2021 is based on their most recent return. However, it should be noted that recovery work in Hackney is still ongoing, and therefore the statistics for this period are presented as a best available estimate.
A similar interruption has occurred at Gloucester City Council. As a result of a criminal cyber-attack, Gloucester City Council is unable to supply DWP with Housing Benefit data until further notice. This has affected Housing Benefit statistics from December 2021. Data problems are unlikely to be fixed until late into 2022. Until then HB statistics that cover Gloucester will be derived from earlier data using the same approach we adopted for Hackney.
Please refer to our background information note for more information on the impacts to our statistics and how we have managed this interruption.
State Pension
During 2019, a new DWP computer system called “Get Your State Pension” (GYSP) came online to handle State Pension claims. The GYSP system is now handling a sizeable proportion of new claims.
We are not yet able to include GYSP system data in our published statistics for State Pension. The number of GYSP cases are too high to allow us to continue to publish State Pension data on Stat-Xplore. In the short term, we will provide GYSP estimates based on payment systems data. As a temporary measure, State Pension statistics will be published via data tables only. The latest release contains State Pensions estimates for the quarters to February 2022.
For these reasons, a biannual release of supplementary tables to show State Pension deferment increments and proportions of beneficiaries receiving a full amount has been suspended. The latest available time period for these figures remains September 2020.
We are developing new statistical datasets to properly represent both computer systems. Once we have quality assured the new data it will be published on Stat-Xplore, including a refresh of historical data using the best data available.
For more information, see our background information note.
Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit
Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) statistics are now released on Stat-Xplore only. IIDB statistics on Stat-Xplore cover from March 2017 onwards. Read further guidance about this change and previously published ODS tables.
Also published
Also published as part of this release as data tables are statistics on:
More information
A statistical summary document is published every six months in February and August each year. It contains a high level summary of the latest National Statistics on DWP benefits. Commentary on Benefit Combination statistics is now included twice a year as part of this collection. Benefit Combinations statistics are released quarterly on Stat-Xplore.
Find further information about the publication and statistics, including details on changes and revisions, in the background and methodology documents.
Further information about this release can be found on the DWP benefits statistics collection page and in the “Welfare and Benefits” community on StatsUserNet.
We now have a dedicated email address for this publication. If you have any comments or questions, get in touch at: benefits.statistics@dwp.gov.uk
Last updated 19 August 2022 + show all updates
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Added a note to the page about the August 2022 release of Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit statistics on Stat-Xplore.
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First published.