Official Statistics

Pension Credit applications and awards: geographical distributions background information and methodology November 2025

Updated 3 December 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Purpose of the statistics 

Context of the statistics 

On 29 July 2024, the Government announced that they would implement a targeted approach to Winter Fuel Payment eligibility in England and Wales from Winter 2024 to 2025 in response to fiscal pressures. Eligibility was restricted to pensioner households England and Wales with someone receiving Pension Credit or certain other income-related benefits. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, winter heating assistance is a devolved or transferred policy area, respectively.  

For Winter 2024 to 2025, the Scottish Government brought forward new legislation in the Scottish Parliament for a Pension Age Winter Heating Payment that replaced the Winter Fuel Payment in Scotland – which was linked to Pension Credit and other qualifying benefits in the same way as in England and Wales.  

On 9 June 2025, the Government announced that from Winter 2025 to 2026, with the standard exceptions for people in prison, hospital, or in a care home for a specified period, payments will be made to all pensioners England and Wales. For those with taxable income over £35,000 per annum, and who are not in receipt of Pension Credit or another relevant means-tested benefit, the full payment will be recovered via the personal tax system.  

The Scottish Government will follow the same policy for their equivalent payments. 

Strong interest remains in the number of Pension Credit applications and awards, particularly by geographical regions, Local Authorities and Westminster Parliamentary Constituencies. 

Purpose of the statistics 

Since November 2024, DWP has published quarterly statistics on Pension Credit application and awards, covering the number of weekly Pension Credit claims received and claims cleared, for Great Britain only. From February 2025 onwards, these publications additionally included Pension Credit claims – awarded, claims – not awarded, and outstanding claims. Geographical breakdowns of the statistics, including country, region, local authority, and Westminster parliamentary constituencies, were included within this series from the August 2025 release.  

Our internal users comprise of employees within the Department for Work and Pensions. This group uses the statistics to answer questions from the public, media, government agencies, parliamentary questions and research groups. The statistics help inform policy by making sure the right benefit groups are being helped. 

Our external users include devolved administrations, MPs, press, journalists, researchers and academics, and voluntary organisations and charities. The external group uses the statistics for research purposes and awareness. The statistics allow people to see the number of applications and awards in their local area. 

Limitations of the statistics 

Figures presented in this release are from DWP’s Pension Credit system which has previously been collected for internal departmental operations use only. They provide the best source of application, clearances and outstanding claims data available for Pension Credit. 

For a small number of cases, geographical information is not available. For application and clearances information, this includes cases being processed solely in the Apply for Pension Credit (AfPC) system where, due to the maturity of the system, this data is not currently available. For outstanding claims information, this includes unregistered cases which are still due to be registered on the system and so do not have geographic information attached until the following week. Due to how unregistered cases are reported, geographies cannot be back processed. 

Changes to operational and data recording processes, alongside further methodology and quality assurance checks, indicates minor volatility in previous weeks operational data is possible. Testing shows this does not materially change scale and trends presented in this statistical release; however, it is possible future Pension Credit MI data publications will include updated data for previous weeks. Due to changes in the rounding methodology used in the national statistics following the supplementary release of the Pension Credit applications and awards: geographical distribution data tables on 16 September 2025, comparisons with previous Official Statistics in this series may produce misleading differences because the figures were rounded using different bases. 

Due to the nature of how the management data is collected, postcodes are assigned when the data is extracted and may not relate to a consistent point in a claim journey. As such, for a small number of cases, geographic information may not be a true representation of residential geography when an application is made or cleared. 

Comparisons between the statistics 

Pension Credit application and awards figures in this series are not comparable to those published quarterly on Stat-Xplore and GOV.UK as part of the DWP Benefit Statistics statistical series, covering Pension Credit recipients by residential geography. This is because the statistics in this publication relate to Pension Credit applications as opposed to those currently in receipt of Pension Credit.

Source of the statistics 

Data is sourced from internal Management Information (MI), which is used for operational purposes. 

The Pension Credit claim information within the MI is obtained from the Pensions Transformation Programme Customer Account Management (PTPCAM) system, which includes processing status and geography data. DWP’s Customer Information System (CIS) and provides postcode data associated with a case to the PTPCAM system. 

Geographical postcode data is then matched to the National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL) to retrieve Country, Region, Local Authority and Westminster Parliamentary Constituency information, in accordance with Office for National Statistics (ONS) guidance.  

Not awarded cleared cases that have been processed solely on the AfPC system, and clerically reported unregistered cases that have not been registered on the PTPCAM system yet are independently added to claim volumes. For these applications geography information is missing. 

Where geography information is missing an ‘Unknown’ value is assigned and these are grouped.

Definitions and terminology within the statistics

-	Definition
Apply for Pension Credit (AfPC)	AfPC is a digital system used by customers to apply for Pension Credit.
Customer Information System (CIS)	CIS is a departmental database containing details of individuals who have interacted with DWP and HMRC systems.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)	DWP is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy for Great Britain. It administers a range of working age, pension age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers.
Geography	Geography is comprised of four measures: country, region, local authority, and Westminster parliamentary constituency.
Outstanding Pension Credit claims	Pension Credit claims where an outcome decision is still to be determined. Advanced Pension Credit claims applications have been excluded from outstanding Pension Credit claims figures, as these cannot be processed until the claimant (and their partner if they have one) reaches State Pension age. Advanced claims are where the application can be started up to 4 months before reaching State Pension age.
Pension Credit	An income-related benefit made up of two parts – Guarantee Credit and Savings Credit, for people of pension age.
Pension Credit claim applications	An application for Pension Credit made by, or on behalf of, either a single person or a person with a partner in a household.
Pension Credit claims cleared	Pension Credit claims where an outcome decision has been notified to the applicant or the claim was withdrawn, recorded in the week it was cleared.
Pension Credit claims cleared – awarded	A Pension Credit claim where the outcome decision resulted in an award.
Pension Credit claims cleared - not awarded	A Pension Credit claim where the outcome decision resulted in no award.
Pensions Transformation Programme Customer Account Management (PTPCAM)	PTPCAM is a departmental system used to administer Pension Credit and State Pension.
Winter Fuel Payment	The Winter Fuel Payment is an annual, tax-free lump sum payment intended to provide older people with a contribution to heating costs in winter. It is paid to people who have reached State Pension age on or before the end of the qualifying week (the week beginning the third Monday of September each year) and meet certain other entitlement conditions (with exceptions applying to people in prison, hospital, or in a care home for a specified period).

Before winter 2024 to 2025 the Winter Fuel Payment was a universal benefit without any means-test: any household with someone over State Pension age in the third week of September was eligible for a Winter Fuel Payment. 

In response to fiscal pressures, the payment was targeted to low-income pensioners for winter 2024 to 2025, with eligibility linked to Pension Credit or certain other income-related benefits.  

From Winter 2025 to 2026, Winter Fuel Payments will remain targeted by income, but a larger range of lower- and middle-income pensioners (with incomes at or below £35,000) will benefit. For those with taxable income over £35,000 per annum, and who are not in receipt of Pension Credit or another relevant means-tested benefit, any Winter Fuel Payment received will be recovered in full via the personal tax system. 

Please note, the above is with respect to England and Wales only. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, winter heating assistance is a devolved or transferred policy area, respectively. The ability for DWP to pay Winter Fuel Payments in Scotland formally ended in March 2024, following the closure of the Regulated Social Fund in Scotland. From Winter 2024 to 2025 Scottish Government replaced Winter Fuel Payment with Pension Age Winter Heating Payment which was delivered by DWP on Scottish Government’s behalf for Winter 2024 to 2025 only. From Winter 2025 to 2026 Pension Age Winter Heating Payment will be delivered by Social Security Scotland.

Revisions to the statistics 

These statistics will be revised quarterly as minor volatility in previous weeks operational data is possible. We believe this does not materially change scale and trends presented in this statistical release.

Status of the statistics 

This release is classed official statistics in development. As this is a new series of data that has previously not been published, we will continue to develop collection methodology and quality assurance processes going forward. 

Timeline of changes to this publication: 

1. 27 February 2025 publication: 

a) Updated commentary to provide context for introduced policy changes to Winter Fuel Payments.  

b) Added weekly outstanding Pension Credit claim statistics. 

c) Extended the series to include data for 2023 to 2024 period. 

d) Inclusion of a data revision table. 

2. 29 May 2025 publication: 

a) Introduced a PDF version of the publication. 

3. 28 August 2025 publication: 

a) Geographical breakdown of the national statistics, including region, local authority and Westminster Parliamentary constituency, were added as data tables as a supplementary statistical release on 16 September 2025. 

b) Changes were made to the rounding of the statistics from 100 to 5 to accommodate the addition of geographical breakdowns, which required a more granular rounding number. 

4. 27 November 2025 publication: 

a) Updated commentary to included only a 52-week rolling narrative, and removal of weekly data and data revision table from publication commentary.

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 – is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics 

• quality – is about using data and methods that produce statistics 

• value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs 

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

Trustworthiness 

DWP analysts work to a professional competency framework and Civil Service core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity, and impartiality. The analysis in this release has been scrutinised and received sign off by the expert lead analyst. 

We protect the security of our data in order to maintain the privacy of the citizen, fulfil relevant legal obligations and uphold our obligation that no statistics will be produced that are likely to identify an individual, while at the same time taking account of our obligation to obtain maximum value from the data we hold for statistical purposes. All analysts are given security training, and the majority of data accessed by analysts is obfuscated and access is business case controlled based to the minimum data required. 

Quality 

This publication uses internal management information from DWP’s Pension Credit internal systems and has not been quality assured to Official Statistics publication standards. However, engagement has taken place with data owners to ensure this data is fit-for-purpose and of sufficient quality for publication. Multiple rounds of quality assurance have been applied to ensure the data is as accurate and reliable as possible. During the development various quality assurance activities took place: 

• Collaboration with data providers to understand the data sources and ensure data is fit-for-purpose and of sufficient quality for publication 

• Work to match variables in the MI to variables on the existing system to ensure data was acquired correctly 

Checks were performed to assess: 

• reliability, completeness and level of disclosure of individual variables 

• levels of duplicate, missing or contradictory information 

• comparability to related statistics such as the main Pension Credit applications and awards and Winter Fuel Payment statistical series

Value 

These statistics are being published given public interest in Pension Credit claims following the Chancellor’s announcement on the 29 July 2024 that Winter Fuel payments will be limited to those on Pension Credit or other means tested benefits from Winter 2024. The figures add to the wider set of information on those who are claiming Pension Credit. The figures also help support answering Parliamentary Questions, Freedom of Information requests and other forms of ad hoc enquiry.

Feedback 

We welcome feedback 

You are welcome to contact us directly at RS.ServiceAnalytics@dwp.gov.uk with any comments about how we produce and present these statistics. Please note: this inbox is for statistical queries only and cannot be used to check progress of an individual Pension Credit claim. 

For press enquiries contact DWP Press Office at newsdesk@dwp.gov.uk. 

Useful links 

Pension Credit application and awards collection page