Guidance

DWP benefits statistical summaries: policies and statements

Policies and statements for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits statistical summaries.

• From: Department for Work and Pensions
• Published: 23 June 2011
• Last updated: 28 November 2024 — See all updates

Documents

Response to Office for Statistics Regulation report: DWP benefits statistical summary

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Background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary

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Methodology statement: DWP benefits statistical summary

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Quality statement: DWP benefits statistical summary

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Uses and users: DWP benefits statistical summary

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Benefit Combination statistics: background information note

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Bereavement Support Payment statistics: background information and methodology

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Housing Benefit caseload and flows statistics: methodology statement

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Details

The policies and statements on this page are for the DWP benefits statistical summaries.

We’ve also published:

• benefit sanctions statistics: background information and methodology

• other policies and statements related to DWP statistics

There is more about our statistics on the Statistics at DWP page.

Published 23 June 2011
Last updated 28 November 2024 + show all updates

1. 28 November 2024

   Information about the reinstatement of State Pension statistics has been added to section 4 of the 'Background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary'.

2. 12 November 2024

   The Background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary has been updated at section 4. State Pension statistics.

3. 13 August 2024

   Changes have been made to the 'background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary' - new information has been made to section 4 about State Pension statistics. Minor changes have been made to the Methodology statement: DWP benefits statistical summary. The latest release of statistics has been published today (13 August 2024).

4. 14 May 2024

   Updated the second attachment on the page, 'background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary' - new information about Na h-Eileanan Siar council has been added to Section 3. HB data quality. A minor revision has been made to the third attachment on the page, 'methodology statement: DWP benefits statistical summary' - an update has been made to the Overview section about the DWP teams who are responsible for producing the quarterly statistics. The latest release of statistics has been published today (14 May 2024).

5. 13 February 2024

   Changes have been made to the following sections of the Benefit Combination statistics background information note: 2.4 PIP/DLA/AA, 2.8.1 UC Health, 2.10 Benefit Combination (Out of Work), 3.4 Methodological differences – UC Health, 3.6 Cleaning, 8. Changes to the series, and Annex A: List and classification of variables. The latest release of statistics has been published today (13 February 2024).

6. 14 November 2023

   Changes have been made to the background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary. The latest release of benefit statistics has been published today (14 November 2023).

7. 15 August 2023

   Published a revised version of the 'Benefit Combination statistics: background information note'. Section 6 (Status of the statistics) has been updated to reflect that the Benefit Combination statistics are now classed as Official Statistics. Published a revised of the 'Background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary' — section 6 (IIDB data on Stat-Xplore) has been updated. Added notes to the relevant documents that Bereavement Support Payment and Housing Benefit flows statistics are now classed as Official Statistics.

8. 16 May 2023

   Revised the Benefit Combination statistics: background information note. Updated section 8 (changes to the series) and Annex A (List and classification of variables) to reflect that Ward level data is now included in the statistics. Minor changes have also been made to the background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary.

9. 14 February 2023

   Minor changes have been made to the background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary. This has meant renumbering the sections in the document. Also revised the Benefit Combination statistics: background information note. Added information about Scottish Devolution to sections 1 (Background), 4.1 (Benefit changes in Scotland) and 4.2 (Presentation of Benefit Combinations in Scotland). Added information about Pension Credit to section 2.10 (Benefit Combination (Out of Work)). Added a new entry for February 2023 to the table in section 8 (Changes to the series).

10. 2 December 2022

    Updated the second attachment on the page 'background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary'. A new section has been added (section 1), about an error found in IIDB data on Stat-Xplore).

11. 15 November 2022

    Updated the second attachment on the page 'background information note: DWP benefits statistical summary'. A new section has been added - section 1 (Maternity Allowance statistics for May 2022). Information has also been added to section 9 (DLA and AA statistics on Stat-Xplore). The latest release of benefit statistics has been published today (15 November 2022).

12. 16 August 2022

    Revisions made to 2 attachments. In the background information note for the DWP benefits statistical summary, the following sections have updated: 1. Scottish devolution, 3. HB data quality: interruptions in data supplied from Hackney Borough Council and Gloucester City Council, and 4. State Pension Statistics. A new section (2. HB caseload and flows data on Stat-Xplore: revisions made to our statistics) has been added. In the methodology statement for Housing Benefit caseload and flows statistics, a new has been section added about revisions to HB statistics, and a new data source added (Universal Credit Full System data (UCFS)) to the section on data sources.

13. 17 May 2022

    Updated section 1. Scottish devolution and added new section 2. HB data quality: interruptions in data supplied from Hackney Borough Council and Gloucester City Council and new section 3. HB data on Stat-Xplore: suspension of Passporting Benefit Status field.

14. 25 February 2022

    Revised the Benefit Combination statistics: background information note. Added Child Disability Payment and Disability Living Allowance information to section 3.1 (Methodological differences – PIP), updated the cases cleaned table in section 3.5 (Cleaning), added a new section 4 about Scottish Devolution, and added information about February 2022 to the table in section 8 (Changes to the series).

15. 15 February 2022

    Revised version of the background information note for the DWP benefits statistical summary. Main revisions are to sections 1. State Pension Statistics and 6. Scottish devolution. The latest release of DWP benefit statistics has been published today (15 February 2022).

16. 16 November 2021

    Revised version of the background information note for the DWP benefits statistical summary. This has been updated to support the latest release of these statistics, also published today (16 November 2021).

17. 17 August 2021

    Updated the background information notes for the DWP benefits statistical summary and Benefit Combination statistics. For the benefits statistical summary, added information about IIDB datasets to the introduction and a new section 1 on State Pension statistics. Revised section 2 with updated information about the impact of coronavirus on JSA statistics, and section 5 with additional information about Housing Benefit statistics. Also added an update to section 7 about Stat-Xplore and the AA and DLA Main Disabling Condition datasets. For the Benefit Combination statistics, information for August 2021 has been added to the table of changes in section 7 and a new Annex A (List and Classification of Variables) has been added. The latest releases of DWP benefit summary and Benefit Combination statistics have been published today, 17 August 2021.

18. 10 June 2021

    Revised versions of the 'Background information note', 'Methodology statement' and 'Quality statement'. Updated the information about Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) statistics. The latest release of IIDB statistics are now available on the Stat-Xplore online tool.

19. 18 May 2021

    Updated version of the background information note - includes a new section 2 on Housing Benefit data and a revised section 3 on Get Your State Pension. The latest release of DWP benefits statistics has been published today (18 May 2021).

20. 13 May 2021

    Added a new document to the page 'Response to Office for Statistics Regulation report: DWP benefits statistical summary'. This sets out the actions needed (and those already taken) to maintain the National Statistics badging on the DWP quarterly benefit statistics.

21. 23 February 2021

    Revised version of the background information notes for the DWP benefits statistical summary and Benefit Combination statistics, and a revised quality statement for the DWP benefits statistical summary. These have been updated to support the latest release of these statistics, also published today (23 February 2020).

22. 10 November 2020

    Published 2 new documents: Bereavement Support Payment statistics: background information and methodology, and Housing Benefit caseload and flows statistics: methodology statement.

23. 11 August 2020

    Revised versions of the background information note and methodology statement - both now include new information about the use of data from the DWP Customer Information System (CIS). These have been revised to support the latest release of DWP benefits statistics, also published today (11 August 2020).

24. 30 June 2020

    Updated the uses and users document - changes to how the data can be accessed and how DWP analyse the use of it.

25. 19 May 2020

    Revised versions of the background information note, methodology statement and quality statement. These have been revised to support the latest release of DWP benefits statistics (also published today, 19 May 2020).

26. 13 August 2019

    Published revised version of the 'DWP statistical summary: background information note', now dated August 2019. The note had been updated to support the latest release of DWP benefit statistics on 13 August 2019.

27. 14 May 2019

    Replaced 'DWP statistical summary: background information note' with an updated version dated May 2019. The note had been updated to support the release of DWP benefit statistics on 14 May 2019.

28. 19 February 2019

    Replaced 'DWP statistical summary: background information note' with an updated version dated February 2019. The note had been updated to support the release of DWP benefit statistics on 19 February 2019.

29. 13 November 2018

    Replaced 'DWP statistical summary: background information note' with an updated version dated November 2018. The note had been updated to support the release of DWP benefit statistics on 13 November 2018.

30. 14 August 2018

    Replaced 'DWP statistical summary: background information note' with an updated version dated August 2018. The note had been updated to support the release of DWP benefit statistics on 14 August 2018.

31. 16 August 2017

    Added a new background information note for benefit combination caseloads.

32. 15 February 2017

    Replaced 'DWP statistical summary: background information note' with updated version dated February 2017.

33. 18 May 2016

    Added link to 'Monthly rate of claimants sanctioned: background information and methodology'.

34. 11 November 2015

    Replaced 'DWP statistical summary: background information note' with updated version. Information added about groupings used in official statistics on Jobseeker's Allowance sanction decisions and reasons (page 3, paragraph 4).

35. 23 June 2011

    First published.