Annual DWP Benefits Statistics Compendium
Accredited Official Statistics and Official Statistics on the main benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
This annual compendium brings together DWP Accredited Official Statistics and Official Statistics on the benefits listed below. Additionally, Benefit Combinations statistics, provides a picture of the number of people claiming one or more DWP benefits at a given point in time. The statistics are published in the statistical summary documents available below and as datasets on Stat-Xplore.
- Attendance Allowance (AA)
- Bereavement benefits (BB)
- Bereavement Support Payment (BSP)
- Carer’s Allowance (CA)
- Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
- Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- Housing Benefit (HB)
- Incapacity Benefit (IB)
- Income Support (IS)
- Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB)
- Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
- Pension Credit (PC)
- Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
- Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA)
- State Pension (SP)
- Universal Credit (UC)
- Widow’s Benefit (WB)
Official Statistics on Maternity Allowance (MA) are available on the MA collection page.
Similar benefit statistics for Northern Ireland and Scotland are available.
Latest release
Consultation
The DWP public consultation on plans to change the scheduling and alignment and reduce the frequency of some of our routine administrative-based benefit Official Statistics has now closed and we have now considered all responses. You can view full details of the outcome of the consultation here: DWP administrative-based benefit statistics: proposed changes to scheduling and frequency of releases.
Employment Support Allowance and Jobseekers Allowance Ethnicity Data
Collection of ethnicity data for working age claimants outside of UC (new style ESA and JSA) was suspended in September 2025 until a new platform is delivered to receive New Style claims and collect the required claimant data. As a result ethnicity measures of the JSA and ESA caseload published within these statistics are suspended from the November 2025 release of these statistics onward, until the new collection is underway and completion of the ethnicity field in the JSA and ESA caseloads has passed the minimum 70% threshold. This means that JSA and ESA data to February 2025 (released in August 2025) is the latest available time point where ethnicity breakdowns are available on Stat-Xplore.
State Pension Undercount
To ensure accurate reporting, a temporary methodological solution has been applied to the data for May 2025 onwards to fully capture all State Pension cases, including those migrated to the Get Your State Pension (GYSP) service from the legacy platform. This means the statistics for May 2025 onward reflect the complete caseload, with no undercount.
Quarterly State Pension statistics for November 2024 and February 2025 contain a known undercount. During this period, approximately 5,000 to 6,000 cases (less than 0.05% of the total caseload) were migrated from the Pension Strategy Computer System (PSCS) to GYSP. However, due to the way GYSP data is compiled, these migrated cases were not yet visible in standard datastores and therefore were not included in the statistics.
While statistics for November 2024 and February 2025 remain unchanged, the temporary solution ensures that migrated cases are now included from May 2025 onwards. A permanent fix is in development to allow future statistics to capture all migrated cases without relying on tactical adjustments.
Scottish devolution: changes to the presentation of DWP statistics
The devolution of social security benefits to the Scottish Government is now impacting DWP statistics.
Please refer to our background information note for more information on presentational changes we have made to our statistics in response to Scottish devolution.
Scottish Disability and Carers Benefits Transition
The Scotland Act 2016 devolved responsibility for certain disability and carer benefits from the UK Government to the Scottish Government.
In September 2018, Carer’s Allowance (CA) became the first of DWP’s benefits to have executive competence (administrative responsibility) transferred from DWP to Scottish Government. On 1 April 2020, responsibility for the remaining disability and industrial injuries benefits transferred to Scottish Government. This included Attendance Allowance (AA), Disability Living Allowance (DLA), Industrial Injuries Scheme benefits (IIS) inclusive of Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB), Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA). However, as the Scottish Government was not in a position to deliver provision for disability and carer assistance at the point of transfer of responsibility, DWP continued to deliver these benefits under interim Agency Agreements on behalf of Scottish Ministers in the same way as in England and Wales. DWP caseload statistics include all claimants receiving the relevant DWP benefits, including those living in Scotland whose benefits were paid by DWP under these Agency Agreements. DWP caseload statistics do not include recipients of Scottish disability and carer benefits administered by Social Security Scotland.
Between 2021 and 2025, the Scottish Government replaced AA, CA, DLA and PIP with new, Scotland-only benefits. Social Security Scotland – the executive delivery agency of the Scottish Government – administers these new Scottish disability and carer benefits directly; Adult Disability Payment has replaced PIP, Carer Support Payment has replaced CA, Child Disability Payment has replaced DLA (for children), Pension Age Disability Payment has replaced AA and Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance has replaced DLA. All Scottish recipients of AA, CA, DLA and PIP have now been transferred from DWP to Social Security Scotland and DWP no longer administers these benefits in Scotland.
DWP continues to administer SDA and IIDB in Scotland under Agency Agreements and as such the statistics presented here will still include Scottish recipients of these benefits.
Jobseekers Allowance Methodology Improvement
DWP Statisticians have identified that a subset of inactive Jobseekers Allowance claims have been contributing to the caseload. A methodological improvement has been applied for August 2025 data onwards which will remove these inactive cases. As such, users can expect to see a decrease primarily in the Nil and Unknown payment counts. For example, in August 2025, there was a caseload reduction of 13,000 (16.4%) attributable to the change in methodology.
Further information
Read our background information note for more details about changes and revisions to the release.
Email benefits.statistics@dwp.gov.uk if you have any comments or questions about the information above.
Find contact information and more about DWP statistics on the Statistics at DWP page. Find future benefits statistics publication dates in our statistics release calendar.
Background information and guidance
We’ve published our policies and procedures for DWP statistics in the interests of transparency and to comply with the UK Statistics Authority code of practice.
We’ve also published specific policies and statements on DWP statistical summaries.
DWP benefit statistics tools
Stat-Xplore allows you to download and customise DWP statistics. For help with Stat-Xplore, see DWP benefit statistics tools.
Previous releases
Related publications
DWP publish historic and forecast benefit expenditure and caseload data which is usually consistent with the annual Budget and Autumn Statement.
Abstract of DWP benefit rate statistics
Employment and Support Allowance: outcomes of Work Capability Assessments
Housing Benefit: debt recoveries and fraud data