Official Statistics

Background and methodology: Winter Fuel Payment statistics for winter 2024 to 2025

Published 16 September 2025

Applies to England and Wales

1. Introduction

This report provides information on the methodology used to create the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) Official Statistics for winter 2024 to 2025 published on the 16 September 2025.

Statistics are available for the first time on Stat-Xplore and report on recipients and beneficiaries of WFP.

The statistics include a measure of the proportion of the pensioner population who are beneficiaries of WFP.

The statistics cover WFP made to England, Wales and eligible European Economic Area (EEA) countries and Switzerland.

Information on the methodology used for previous releases can be found in the:

• background information and methodology (from winter 2020 to 2021 to 2023 to 2024)

2. Overview of the Statistics

Eligibility

The Winter Fuel Payment (WFP) was introduced in 1997 and is an annual tax-free payment made to eligible people of state pension age to help towards their winter heating costs. It is a lump sum payment, depending on the recipient’s age and circumstances during the qualifying week, and in most cases is paid automatically between November and December.

In July 2024, the government announced changes to the WFP policy which came into effect for winter 2024 to 2025. The main changes were that you had to:

• live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, although in some circumstances people were eligible if they lived abroad

• be getting one of the following:

  • pension credit
  • universal credit
  • income-related employment and support allowance
  • income-based jobseeker’s allowance
  • income support
  • child tax credit
  • working tax credit.

People did not qualify if throughout the qualifying period they:

• were in hospital getting free treatment for more than one year

• needed permission to enter the UK and granted leave states that they cannot claim public funds

• were in prison for the whole qualifying week

• lived in a care home for the whole period from 12 weeks prior to the final day of the qualifying week, and got Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) or income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)

The full eligibility criteria for winter 2024 to 2025 is listed on the government web archive. People had to be eligible during the ‘qualifying week’, which was the third week in September.

Read further information on changes to the State Pension age

People could still be able to receive the payment if they lived in an eligible EEA country or Switzerland and had a genuine and sufficient link (GSL) to the UK, this can include having lived or worked in the UK and having family in the UK.

Metrics

Statistics from winter 2024 to 2025 have been produced following the changes to the WFP eligibility criteria, announced by the government on the 29 July 2024.

To provide users with context on the changes to WFP eligibility and to reduce the risk of inaccurate figures being calculated by users of the statistics, we have included new metrics covering ‘recipients’ and ‘beneficiaries’ of WFP and ‘proportion of the pensioner population who were beneficiaries of the WFP’ in the Winter 2024 to 2025 release.

These statistics are available by region, Local Authority and Westminster parliamentary constituency. The household metric, which was previously reported has been removed as the recipient measure now provides a count of households given that the payment is made at household level. These changes are detailed in the data compilation and methodology section of this document.

Dissemination

Key insights from these statistics are summarised in an annual statistical bulletin.

Summary statistics in tabular form are also published alongside the bulletin together with supporting guidance, notes and sources. For users who want to do their own analysis including for small areas, the statistics from winter 2020 to 2021 onwards are published on Stat Xplore.

3. Source Data

Source Data

These statistics use administrative data from the Seasonal Payment System. An extract of the system is taken each year, usually on the 31st May and is used as the basis for the WFP statistics.

Geographical information, age, and gender of recipients are derived from the Customer Information System (CIS).

For England and Wales, mid-2024 population estimates for country and local authority have been used to derive rates. For Westminster parliamentary constituency mid-2022 population estimates are used. Population estimates are the latest available at the time of release and may be subject to change. While every effort is made to collect data to the highest quality, as with all administrative data it is dependent on the accuracy of information entered into the system. Checks are made throughout the process from collection of the data to producing the statistics, but some data entry or processing errors may filter through to the data used to produce the statistics.

Data Validation

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) staff follow detailed guidance and undergo training to minimise errors during data entry. Further automatic validation checks are carried out after this, and they include:

• personal details checked against CIS data

• rule-based checks at different stages of a claim’s lifecycle

As WFP are made to those eligible of the State Pension age, further checks are made against the relevant datasets to check validity.

Data Cleaning

The source data includes additional entries for recipients that have had an adjustment to their WFP allowance eligibility during the payment period. These additional entries are removed by using the latest adjustment for each recipient, ensuring each recipient only appears once and the most up to date information is used in the compilation of these statistics.

Data compilation and methodology

This section describes the methodology underpinning the WFP statistics. It explains how data are linked together and how new variables are created.

Information on the methodology used for previous releases can be found in the:

• background information and methodology (from winter 2020 to 2021 to 2023 to 2024)

Beneficiaries

The number of beneficiaries of WFP is derived from identifying eligible partners through the pension credit and Universal Credit (UC) household datasets.

To identify eligible partners of those claiming Pension Credit, scans of the ‘Pension Credit Customer’ and ‘Pension Credit Non-Customer’ datasets were taken for the week after the end of the qualifying period (16 to 22 September 2024) , the week after the 21 December 2024 (the last date for people to submit Pension credit claims to be eligible for WFP) and the middle of March 2025 (to account for processing pension credit claims).

The pension credit claim start date, had to be before, or within the qualifying period.

The following information was taken from the databases:

• Encrypted NINo

• Non-customer Encrypted NINo

• Non-customer Date of Birth

• Claim Start Date

• Partner Flag

Using the following rules, a partner dataset was created to merge onto the WFP extract:

• Partner flag on the customer dataset had to be ‘yes’

• Non-customer type had to be ‘partner (alias)’ or ‘partner (real)’

• Non-customer Date of Birth had to be before the 23 September 1958

• Customer NINo had to be present in WFP scan

Note: any duplicate entries were removed

To identify eligible partners in the UC Household dataset the UC Household dataset was used. The rules were:

• Claim month was November 2024

• A NINo had to be provided for ‘Partner NINo variable’

• Date of birth had to be before 23 September 1958 (to make them aged 66 or older by the end of the qualifying week for WFP

Note: duplicate entries were removed.

To create a total number of partners to merge on to the WFP dataset, the pension credit partners and UC household partner datasets were merged together with any duplicates removed.

These partners were then merged on to the WFP dataset, creating a partner flag which was used to create the beneficiary variable (by adding recipients with the number of partners).

Beneficiaries as a proportion of the pensioner population

To create the beneficiaries as a proportion of the pensioner population metrics, the following steps were taken:

1. Using Nomis^{[footnote 1]} official census and labour market statistics population estimates by year of age for small area and local authority. Latest estimates available were from mid-2024 for local authority and mid-2022 for Westminster parliamentary constituency.

2. Create population estimates of adults aged 66 plus by summing all age bands from age 66 and over.

3. Divide the beneficiary measure by the population estimate of adults aged 66 plus, to create the proportion of the estimated population who were beneficiaries of WFP.

Geography

The Customer Information System (CIS) is used to provide the geographical data associated with each claim and is linked via the recipient’s encrypted National Insurance Number (NINo). The geographical information reported in these statistics shows where the recipient lived on the reference date, in this case the last date of the qualifying week for the relevant year. Where geography information is missing, an ‘Unknown’ value is assigned, and these show as ‘unknown’ within England and Wales data breakdown tables.

Age

The age of a recipient (in years) is derived from their date of birth on CIS. Age is calculated as at the relevant time point of interest, in this case at the last date of the qualifying week for the relevant year of claims. As the State Pension age is being increased in phases, all recipients aged 69 and under are grouped together to keep age bands consistent between current and future publications.

Gender

Gender is sourced from CIS which reports male, female or unknown. Unknown cases are included in the total caseload statistics but as there are nil or negligible unknown cases, further breakdowns are not provided.

Payment amounts

From winter 2024 to 2025, payment amounts are categorised as £200 or £300. The latest payment amounts for WFP are published on GOV.UK.

Additional changes to metrics for the 2024 to 2025 release

In addition to the new metrics of ‘beneficiaries’ and the ‘beneficiaries as a proportion of the pensioner population’, some additional changes were made to the measures reported in the winter 2024 to 2025 statistics.

These were as follow,

Households

The household metric, which was previously reported, has been removed for the winter 2024 to 2025 statistics, as the recipient measure now provides a count of households given that the payment is made at household level.

Scotland

WFP are now devolved in Scotland and Scotland provide a Pension Age Winter Heating Payment which commenced for Winter 2024 to 2025. DWP administered this on behalf of Scottish Government. As this benefit is now devolved, coverage of the WFP statistics which previously covered Great Britain now relate solely to England and Wales.

4. Statistical Presentation

Recipients and beneficiaries

The supplementary tables published with the WFP statistics for winter 2024 to 2025 show, for England and Wales:

• Table 1: WFP recipients by region, gender, and age band

• Table 2: WFP recipients by local authority, gender, and age band

• Table 3: WFP recipients by parliamentary constituency, gender, and age band

• Table 4: WFP recipients by region and payment amount

• Table 5: WFP recipients by local authority and payment amount

• Table 6: WFP recipients by parliamentary constituency and payment amount

• Table 7: WFP beneficiaries by region and proportion of pensioners aged 66 and over

• Table 8: WFP beneficiaries by local authority and proportion of pensioners aged 66 and over

• Table 9: WFP beneficiaries by parliamentary constituency and proportion of pensioners aged 66 and over

Statistical concepts and definitions

The following metrics are used within the WFP statistics:

• Age Band – recipients are placed in the age categories ‘66 to 69’, ’70 to 74’, ’75 to 79’ or ’80 plus’

• Gender – categorised as male or female

• Payment amounts – categorised as £200 or £300. Payment amounts are dependent on age and household circumstances

• Geography – this is comprised of four measures: region, local authority, Westminster parliamentary constituency, and abroad (eligible EEA countries and Switzerland), and small area Census-based geographies on StatXplore

Other metrics referenced in the WFP statistics are:

• All cases – the total number of recipients of WFP, including unknown geographies and eligible European Economic Area countries and Switzerland

• Cases from England and Wales – the total number of WFP recipients from England and Wales

• European Economic Area (EEA) – eligible countries from the EEA

• Recipients – number of people recorded as having received a WFP for the given year

• Beneficiaries – from winter 2024 to 2025, beneficiaries refers to the number of recipients, plus the number of eligible partners of recipients of WFP

• Data reference period – the period of time covered by the statistical release, in this case the winter period

• Perturbation – a technique that adds ‘noise’ to a dataset or statistics to ensure confidentiality of individual records

• Qualifying Week – eligibility for WFP is determined by an individual’s circumstances during a given week each year, (usually the week beginning the third Monday of September)

5. Uses of the Statistics

Using the definitions below, we have been able to identify our users and potential users.

Term	Definition
Relevance	This is how the statistics meet the needs of current and potential users for both coverage and content. Innovation is pursued to continuously improve statistical output.
User	Any person or organisation whose work, actions or decisions are influenced by official statistics or by messages derived from statistical data.
Potential User	This can be any person or organisation who might be influenced by the statistics.

These identified users were divided into two groups:

• internal users

• external users

Internal Users

Our internal users comprise of employees within the Department for Work and Pensions including Marketing and Communication, Policy and Strategy, Analysts and the Freedom of Information Team. 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 identifying how much has been spent, forecasting future spending and making sure the right benefit groups are being helped.

The WFP statistics can be used for:

• general expenditure and distribution of the payment

• impact assessments of the changes to and maintenance of the WFP policy

• annual budget and spending round costs

• from winter 2024 to 25, a measure of the number of beneficiaries of WFP

• from winter 2024 to 25, a measure of the proportion of the pensioner population who were beneficiaries of WFP

• Ministerial Briefings

• answering Parliamentary Questions (PQs) published on the UK Parliament website

• answering Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

External Users

Our external users include our stakeholders for example, devolved administrations, 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 amount and numbers of payments made in England and Wales and in eligible EEA countries and Switzerland.

6. Quality

Quality Management

This report assesses the quality of WFP statistics using the European Statistics System (ESS) Quality Assurance Framework (QAF). This is the method recommended by the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Quality Strategy. Statistics are of good quality when they are fit for their intended use.

The ESS QAF measures the quality of statistical outputs against the dimensions of

• relevance

• accuracy and reliability

• timeliness and punctuality

• accessibility and clarity

• comparability and coherence

The GSS also recommends assessment against three other principles in the ESS QAF. These are:

• trade-offs between output quality components

• confidentiality and transparency

• balance between performance, cost and respondent burden

These dimensions and principles cross the three pillars of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Quality Assurance During Development

During the initial development various activities took place:

• collaboration with data providers to understand the impact of the change of data source on the statistical outputs

• work to match variables on the old system to variables on the new system to ensure the new data could match existing user needs

• understanding suitability of additional data sources (CIS) to fill in missing information

Checks were performed to assess:

• reliability, completeness, and level of disclosure of individual variables

• comparability of data from the old source to the new source

• levels of duplicate, missing or contradictory information

• comparability to related statistics such as Pension Credit

• From Winter 2024 to 2025, we have access to Management Information which can be used for quality assurance purposes to check against payments issued and pension credit claims.

Routine Quality Assurance

A general quality assurance checklist is provided to all statistical producers in DWP. This checklist conforms to Quality Assurance of Administrative Data guidance and has been approved by the Government Statistical Service (GSS). This has been tailored for the WFP statistics production process.

Each year several checks are made and double checked by a second analyst:

1. Ensuring code has been updated correctly during data extraction.

2. Comparing figures with last publication.

3. Comparing trends over time.

4. Ensuring all figures are correctly cited in the publication (i.e. release document and summary tables).

5. Ensuring commentary and supporting information is accurate and impartial.

Accessibility and Clarity

Term	Definition
Accessibility	The ease with which users can access the data, also reflecting the format in which the data are available.
Clarity	The quality and sufficiency of the metadata, illustrations and accompanying advice.

Accessibility

WFP statistics follow best practice and guidance from the Government Digital Service and Government Statistical Service in publishing statistics that are accessible to users with a range of disabilities.

The statistics are also released in open formats so that they are accessible in a range of free software applications including:

• the statistical bulletin is published in HTML format on GOV.UK to Government Digital Service accessibility standards, giving equality of access to all users

• tables released as ODS files

• statistics for Winter 2020 to 2021 onwards are available on Stat Xplore

WFP statistics are covered by the:

• Accessibility Statement for DWP Statistics

• The Public Sector Bodies (Website and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations.

Clarity

WFP statistics contain contact details for further information on the statistics, guidance on using the statistics, data sources, limitations, and other necessary relevant information to enable users of the data to interpret and apply the statistics correctly.

Accuracy and Reliability

Term	Definition
Accuracy	This is the proximity between an estimate and the unknown true value.
Reliability	This is the closeness of early estimates to subsequent estimated values.

In most cases, WFP is paid automatically, however, for those people who must claim WFP processing errors could occur during data entry onto the WFP Seasonal Payment System.

To mitigate against these:

• data provided by the recipient is validated at different stages of the WFP process

• DWP staff undergo training on how to input data correctly

• a set of automated checks take place when data is inputted to check for eligibility (for example date of birth)

• the use of variables which are susceptible to processing errors are avoided

To maintain confidentiality of recipients, data within the WFP supplementary tables are perturbed. This means that a small random error is purposefully introduced.

Coherence and comparability

Term	Definition
Comparability	This is the degree to which data can be compared over time, region, or another domain
Coherence	This is the degree to which the statistical processes use the same concepts and harmonised methodology. With the goal being able to combine and make joint use of related data from different data sources.

Comparability to other statistics

These statistics cover England and Wales and eligible EEA countries and Switzerland. As WFP are devolved for  Northern Ireland (NI), comparable benefit statistics for NI can be found within the NI Department for Communities: Annual Report on the Social Fund 2022 to 2023. Information about the Pension Age Winter Heating Payment for Scotland is available.

WFP expenditure figures can be found within the benefit expenditure and Caseload statistics.

Data Revision

Planned

There has been a change in methodology for how individuals are assigned to countries. Due to this there will be a minor revision in numbers of WFP made to those living in eligible EEA countries and Switzerland and the number with an unknown country.

The code for assigning individuals as living in EEA or Switzerland, now only includes eligible EEA countries and Switzerland.

Due to the process for claiming WFP if living in EEA or Switzerland, with individuals needing to submit an application, we have assigned all ‘unknown’ cases to a GB country code. This makes the assumption that due to individuals submitting an application, the DWP will know where these individuals are based, and therefore anyone within an eligible EEA or Switzerland country cannot have an ‘unknown’ country code. Therefore, we know that all those listed as unknown, will live in England and Wales (due to eligibility criteria), so will be listed as Unknown region, as opposed to unknown country.

Unplanned

There are scenarios that may require revisions or change to published official statistics. These changes and how they are handled are:

• methodological changes – if the data source or methodology is improved and changes to historical numbers are significant enough that a revision of previously released tables is needed, DWP will announce the date for the release of revised number or our intention to change the methodology in advance

• correction of errors – although we do perform extensive quality assurance on raw data and statistical tables prior to publication, occasionally errors can occur. In this rare case, we thoroughly investigate how it occurred and strengthen our processes where necessary. Any erroneous statistics are removed and corrected as soon as possible, and users will be informed of the error and any implications on the WFP statistics landing pages. Any corrections will be recorded and highlighted on the WFP collection page

Performance, cost and respondent burden

Data is taken from administrative databases used for the operation of WFP, supplemented by data from existing central data sources to minimise burden on data required from recipients and data providers.

Datasets produced for official statistics are re-used within the department for policy and operational analysis.

Status of the Statistics

These statistics have been classed as official statistics since September 2023.

Timeliness and Punctuality

Term	Definition
Timeliness	This refers to the lapse of time between publication and the period to which the data refer.
Punctuality	This refers to the time lag between the actual and planned dates of publication

Timeliness

Whilst most people will receive WFP automatically, the deadline to make a claim for a WFP for those living in eligible EEA countries and Switzerland was 31 March for the winter that has just passed. The deadline for submitting a pension credit claim for the WFP qualifying week in 2024 was 21 December 2024. WFP statistics are published in September covering the previous winter period. To allow for processing of pension credit claims, payments to those living in eligible EEA countries and Switzerland and adjustments to claims, a data extract is usually created at the end of May. The statistics will not include any (small number of) payments made after the extraction date.

Punctuality

WFP Statistics are published at 9.30am on the day that is pre-announced. The release calendar is updated at the earliest opportunity to inform users of any change to the date of the statistical release and will include a reason for the change. All statistics will be published in compliance with the release policies in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Confidentiality, Security and Transparency

Personal identifiers on the data provided from administrative systems are encrypted to prevent identification of individuals within the data.

Data is held securely with access given only to analysts who have completed internal data access and security training and have a business need to access the data.

For confidentiality purposes, perturbation is used on the data used in the publication. Perturbation is a technique that adds ‘noise’ to a dataset or figures to ensure confidentiality of individual records. The level of ‘noise’ added is minimal and would not impact any further analysis, however, for this reason column totals may not sum.

Frequency

WFP statistics are published annually and cover the winter period of the previous year.

7. Feedback

WFP statistics are published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

If you would like to offer feedback or require further information on these statistics, please contact: wfp.statistics@dwp.gov.uk

For media enquiries on these statistics, please contact the DWP press office.

These contact details are for questions regarding the statistics and are unable to provide any information or assistance with claiming Winter Fuel Payment.

1. Nomis is a service provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). ↩