Guidance

Pensioners’ Incomes release strategy

Updated 9 January 2025

© Crown copyright 2025

This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.

Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.

This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/pensioners-incomes-release-strategy/ecc509e7-f361-410d-a9bf-73aa1f261ead

1. Introduction

Pensioners’ Incomes (PI) provides information on the levels, sources and distribution of pensioner’s income in the UK. It also examines the position of single pensioners and pensioner couples within the income distribution of the population as a whole.

This release strategy acts as the formal notice of changes to any future releases of the PI publication.

The release strategy highlights the potential release of new statistics within the publication and announces any other developments for future publications.

The release strategy is not a static document. It will be updated as plans develop, to provide users with details of latest developments.

The development of these statistics follows the Department for Work and Pension’s statistical work programme.

2. User Engagement

The PI publication team engage with users in the following ways:

  • Data and Publication Quality Assurance Groups
  • participated and presented at the Family Finance Survey Users conference in association with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and UK Data Service (UKDS)
  • provide responses to Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
  • team email: pensioners-incomes@dwp.gov.uk

3. Confirmed changes coming to PI statistics

Developments for financial year ending 2024

PI statistics are based on data from the Family Resources Survey (FRS) and any developments related to the FRS will be published in the FRS Release Strategy document. Developments so far include -

Family Resources Survey (FRS) sample size

We expect a final achieved sample for the year of nearly 17,000 households, rather than the 20,000 originally intended.

Grossing plans

We have not yet received the full set of inputs based on the 2021 Census (2022 for Scotland). Therefore, at the time of the March 2025 release, the 2023 to 2024 publication will not be based on the latest Census, nor will there be an updated set of grossing factors to produce the back series to re-base the PI estimates.

Estimates for the 2023 to 2024 survey year will have their basis in the 2011 Census, as rolled forward to 2023-24 by ONS’ mid-year estimates.

Inclusion of Cost of Living payments in estimates of income

Additional state-support has been made available to households, via several Cost of Living support schemes, depending on family circumstances. These payments will be included in the PI estimates of income. The additional payments will be reflected in our analysis for publication in March 2025. This will continue for each applicable year.

Future Developments

This section will be updated when changes for the next release of PI are announced.

PI statistics are based on data from the FRS and any developments related to the FRS will be published in the FRS Release Strategy document.

4. Feedback

We welcome feedback

If you have any comments or questions, please email:pensioners-incomes@dwp.gov.uk

Back to top