Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up
Estimates of the take-up of the main income-related benefits by caseload and expenditure in Great Britain.
Latest release
The latest release of Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up official statistics, for FYE 2023 was published on Thursday 10 October 2024.
The FYE 2023 publication only focuses on pension age income related benefits:
- Pension Credit
- Housing Benefit
There is a specific challenge in creating a Universal Credit (UC) take-up measure and interpreting and communicating its results within the scope of the Code of Practice for Statistics. We are therefore unable to estimate UC take-up rates at present. For more information about this, see our release strategy document.
A few small errors were identified in the historical data tables. These have been corrected in the data tables published with the latest release and so the data tables previously published should not be used.
Unfulfilled eligibility in the benefit system Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2024
DWP have released a new publication to go alongside the annual Fraud and Error in the Benefit system publication. This publication is called “Unfulfilled eligibility in the benefit system Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2024”. This new publication complements the Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up publication.
The new publication estimates how much extra money benefit claimants could be getting if they told DWP accurately about their circumstances. These people are already getting some money on a certain benefit but may not be getting all the money they could be eligible for on this benefit – this is called unfulfilled eligibility. These unfulfilled eligibility estimates are based on information that was previously included in the Fraud and Error in the Benefit system statistics as Claimant Error underpayments. They were removed and reclassified and are now published separately following a planned review of the fraud and error statistics.
For further information please contact Fraud and Error Measurement and Accuracy (FEMA) at enquiries.fema@dwp.gov.uk
Further information
Find future publication dates in our statistics release calendar and other DWP statistics on the Statistics at DWP page.
If you have any queries about this re-instatement, please contact irb.takeup@dwp.gov.uk
Note, our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
Latest release
Release strategy
This release strategy acts as the formal notice of changes to any future releases of the income-related benefits: estimates of take-up publication.
The strategy describes the potential release of new statistics within the publication and announces any other developments for future publications.
The income-related benefits: estimates of take-up release strategy is not a static document; it will be updated as plans develop, to provide users with details of latest developments.
Previous releases
There are older releases of these statistics on the National Archives website.
Background information and guidance
These statistics are designed to give an estimate of the take-up of benefits within the entitled population. They aim to provide an indication of whether and to what extent the different benefits are taken up by different groups.
The statistics can be used to
- increase awareness of take-up for particular benefits
- inform government policies
- measure the effect of take-up initiatives
Additional details of how the statistics are commonly used can be found in the usage of income-related benefits report on the National Archives website.
Read a guide to sources of data on earnings and income as well as further information on income and earning statistics, both published by the Office for National Statistics.
Updates to this page
Last updated 10 October 2024 + show all updates
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Added a link to the latest release of statistics: Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2023
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Added information to the page about the next release of income-related benefits statistics. The next release will be published on 10 October 2024.
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Added a link to the latest release of statistics: 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2022'.
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Added a note to the page about the next release of income-related benefits statistics. The next release will be published on 26 October 2023.
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Replaced 'Suspension of the 2020 to 2021 estimates' with information about the 'Re-instatement of the 2021 to 2022 estimates'.
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Added a note to the page about the suspension of the estimates for the financial year 2020 to 2021.
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Added a link to the latest release of statistics: 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2019 to 2020'.
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Added a statistical notice to this collection. The notice has information about a change to the next release of Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up official statistics, due to be released on 24 February 2022.
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Added a link to the latest release of these statistics 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2018 to 2019'.
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Added the latest release of these statistics 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2017 to 2018'.
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Added latest statistics for 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2016 to 2017'.
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Added 'Changes in the income-related benefits: estimates of take-up 2016 to 2017: statistical notice' to the background information and guidance documents.
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Added latest stats for Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up for financial year 2015/16.
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Added 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: statistical notice' to related documents.
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Added latest stats for Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up for financial year 2014/15.
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Added latest stats for Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up for financial year 2013/14.
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Amended the date of the next release which is now provisionally due to be published in May or June 2015. This has been changed to allow time to quality assure changes to methodology (the methods used to produce the statistics).
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Published details of next scheduled release for these statistics (January to February 2015).
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First published.