Guidance

Winter Fuel Payment statistics: background information and methodology (to winter 2019 to 2020)

Updated 23 September 2020

This document provides background information on Winter Fuel Payment statistics up to winter 2019 to 2020. These were produced under a previous methodology.

See the new background, quality and methodology report for:

• detail on the differences between the old and new methodologies
• background information on statistics covering winter 2020 to 2021 onwards

Purpose of the statistics

Please note that this document should be read in conjunction with the relevant Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics: policies and procedures.

Context of the statistics

Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free payment made to eligible people to help towards their winter heating costs. It is a lump sum and in most cases is paid automatically, but some people will need to claim.

People could get between £100 and £300 tax-free to help pay their heating bills if they were born on or before 5 April 1954 (for winter 2019 to 2020). Most payments are made automatically between November and December. People should get their money by January.

People will usually get a Winter Fuel Payment automatically if they get the State Pension or another social security benefit (not Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction or Child Benefit).

How much people get depends on their circumstances during the qualifying week. The qualifying week for winter 2019 to 2020 is 16 to 22 September 2019.

People qualify for Winter Fuel Payment if:

• they were born on or before 5 April 1954 (for winter 2019 to 2020) - this date changes every year)
• they normally live in the UK throughout the week of 16 to 22 September 2019 (for winter 2019 to 2020)

People may still be able to get the payment if they live in another European Economic Area (EEA) country or Switzerland and have a genuine link with the UK.

People don’t qualify if throughout the qualifying period they:

• were in prison
• were in hospital getting free treatment for more than 52 weeks
• needed permission to enter the UK and didn’t qualify for help from DWP
• lived in a care home for the previous 12 weeks or more and got Pension Credit, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance

Winter Fuel Payments were initially available only to people who were normally resident in the UK. They were extended in July 2002, under certain circumstances, to people ordinarily resident outside the UK but within the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland; they were extended again in June 2003 to certain third country nationals. As of winter 2012 to 2013, people who live in the EEA or Switzerland who have a genuine and sufficient link to the UK are potentially eligible to receive the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP), regardless of whether they previously had entitlement to it whilst living in the UK. This is a change from previous years, following a 2011 European Court of Justice ruling (the ‘Stewart Case’). Prior to 2012 to 2013 only people who had entitlement to WFP prior to moving overseas, were eligible.

Further background to the scheme can be found at:

• House of Commons Library – the full report includes historic caseload and expenditure figures
• Winter Fuel Payment guide on this website

The qualifying age for the Winter Fuel Payment was formerly 60, but from 2010 it began to increase in line with the State Pension age for women. Read further information on State Pension age.

Use of the statistics

Identifying the users of the statistics and how the statistics are being used.

User: A user of statistics can be 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.

Based on these definitions, we are able to identify our Users and Potential Users. These identified Users were divided into two groups: the Internal and External Users.

Our Internal Users comprise of the employees within the Department for Work and Pensions, Marketing & Communication, Policy and Strategy, Freedom of Information Team, etc. This group uses the statistics to answer questions from the public, media, government agencies, parliamentary questions and research groups.

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 Great Britain and the European Economic Area (EEA). The statistics help policy identify how much has been spent, forecast future spend and make sure the right Benefit groups are being helped.

To identify potential external users of our Winter Fuel Payment statistics we conducted a search, on social media site Twitter, for the words “Winter Fuel Payments statistics” and looked at users of DWP Press Office tweets and press releases (which contained our statistics).

This returned a number of results showing organisations and sites using, referencing or commenting on our statistical data and the wider WFP policy. As well as a number of personal accounts, returned tweets or re-tweets can be broadly broken down into 3 main types of organisation:

• social care or charities
• investing or personal finance
• healthcare and lifestyles

We will continue to monitor who is referencing or using our Winter Fuel Payments statistics via Twitter (on an on-going basis) and further engage with these communities.

The Winter Fuel Statistics can be used for:

• general expenditure spend and distribution of the payment
• impact assessments of the changes to and maintenance of the WFP policy
• annual budget and spending round costs
• a proxy measure of the number of pensioner households in each area
• Ministerial Briefings
• answering Parliamentary Questions (PQs) published on the UK Parliament website
• answering Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Limitations of the statistics

The statistics for WFP cover Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and the EEA and Switzerland. This report contains information on the number of recipients of WFP, the number of households that receive a WFP and the total amount spent on WFP. Comparable benefit statistics for Northern Ireland can be found within the Social Fund Annual Report.

A Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free payment made to eligible people to help towards their winter heating costs. It is a lump sum and in most cases is paid automatically, but some people need to claim. Most payments are made automatically between November and December if the individual is in receipt of State Pension or another social security benefit (not Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction or Child Benefit).

The policy itself is aimed at helping people out of poverty and with the majority of payments being done automatically this reduces the number of fraudulent claims made for this benefit.

Some cases recorded on the administrative system, may not result in a payment: for example, if the person dies or if invalid bank account or address details have been given. Conversely, late payments are sometimes made to people that are not on the system at the time. This means that the actual number of payments made could be slightly different and as a result the WFP statistics refer to those who are eligible for WFP, therefore these statistics should not be used as an indication of those who actually receive a payment.

These statistics do not cover details of benefit expenditure for GB residents as the Budget Responsibility & National Audit Act 2011 establishes the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) as a central part of the UK’s fiscal framework, giving rise to independent reporting of benefit expenditure for examining and reporting on the sustainability of the public finances.

Information on the actual amount spent on Winter Fuel Payments can be found in the DWP historic and forecast benefit expenditure and caseload data.

Comparisons between the statistics

The Statistical Bulletin aims to give users a structured overview of WFP. The latest figures in the table reflect the final figure for the period.

All annual WFP data and therefore statistics are not revised.

Benefit comparisons cannot be made as there are a number of eligibility criteria which are needed to be met for WFP which relate to a combination of benefits.

There may also be some comparability issues with countries which make up the European Union (EU).

Prior to May 2004, the European Union (EU) comprised: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and the UK.

In May 2004, the following 10 countries joined the EU – Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

In January 2007, Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU.

The EEA is all the 27 EU countries and Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, who are not members of the EU.

Switzerland is not a member of the EEA, but it signed an agreement with EU countries in June 2002 to apply EU rules on social security. In May 2006, this agreement was extended to include the 10 countries that joined the EU in May 2004. The agreement does not extend to Bulgaria, Romania or the EEA countries of Iceland, Liechtenstein or Norway.

Following a 2011 European Court of Justice ruling (the ‘Stewart Case’) entitlement to the WFP was extended to those people who live in the EEA or Switzerland who have a genuine and sufficient link to the UK but did not previously have entitlement to the WFP whilst living in the UK. This change commenced for winter 2012/13, resulting in an increase of eligible claims so care should be taken in interpreting the increase from this period and making comparisons before and after the “Stewart Case” ruling.

Statistical staff are aware of forthcoming changes and are in a position to understand the consequences for the statistics based upon them. Similarly, statistical officials are consulted about the data content of new systems when they are produced. See the Statement of Administrative Sources for more details on the complete change control process.

However, the “Notes” section in the Publication is to notify users of any changes planned in future publications and to describe the detail of the issues, changes and revisions which form part of the current release.

Source of the statistics

There are 2 sources of raw data used to identify WFP caseload and household statistics. The sources are:

DWP’s benefit administration datasets

There are numerous sources of data from the legacy systems that are brought together by BPDTS and British Telecom (BT) to create a database which identifies individuals who are entitled to the Winter Fuel Payment.

These legacy source systems datasets are used to identify benefit payments and households. The sources are:

• DWP Customer Information system
• DWP Dead file
• DWP Pensions data
• Housing Benefit data

These datasets are combined by British Telecom (BT) using eligibility criteria supplied by DWP to identify eligibility. BT is in effect an external contractor employed by DWP to process the data we provide. Using the data we supply and our eligibility criteria they simply identify which individuals are eligible for a Winter Fuel Payment.

BT then sends this information to BPDTS who issue entitlement letters. The data is returned to DWP is then loaded, cleaned and checked for error to ensure there are consistencies with the data we have provided and with the previous statistical series.

There is a specific document which relates to the Benefits administration methodology which can be found in the DWP statistical summaries – policies and statements.

Winter Fuel Payment Data

This data is provided as two extracts from BPDTS / British Telecom (BT). The first extract which contains the majority of the cases is provided December/January to give an indication of volumes (sometimes used for forecasting) followed by the next extract which supplied June/July is containing the rest of the cases that weren’t available for processing in December/January. The data is loaded into ASSIST (an in-house data loading tool) where basic Quality Assurance rules such as checking the validity of the codes in each variable, are run and then then geographies are assigned by matching postcodes against the relevant ONS postcode directory.

It is the WFP data that is then combined with the DWP’s benefit administration datasets to identify Benefit Households. Data is combined so that both Caseload and Household statistics can be produced.

The process is complex but the aim of producing these statistics is to take the numbers of individuals (Caseload) who are entitled to receive a Winter Fuel Payment and then relate those payments to the number of households that receive a payment.

Through combining the Benefits data with the Winter Fuel Payments data we can confirm that any one in receipt of the payment is actually in receipt of a relevant benefit and are therefore entitled to receive that payment. These checks ensure the rules have been applied correctly within BPDTS/BT in their processing.

Definitions and terminology within the statistics

Winter Fuel Payment data (both recipients and households) underlying the charts and figures featured in this summary are available via a separate set of statistical tables. These tables contain further breakdowns by Local Authority, gender, age, and Westminster Parliamentary constituency.

There are 2 main counts for this statistical series:

Caseload – a basic count of the total number of people who have received a Winter Fuel Payment

Household – a Household can have one or more people or Benefits being paid, so this count is based on identifying how many people many claimants of each benefit are in the household.

The caseload code requires the qualifying date for WFP to be updated. The code restructures the data to create numeric variables for the benefit codes and checks for duplication. The data is then formatted and tabled.

The household code is updated based on the qualifying week: a general rule for the benefit scans is to use the first scan available after the qualifying date.

The household dataset takes all benefit data from the legacy systems and merges the WFP caseload data to identify all claimants on the benefit systems and then systematically works through the merged data to identify how many people on benefits belong to a household. A benefit unit is an adult and their partner (if applicable) and any dependent children living with them.

These statistics are based on the estimated number of benefit units linked to each weather station that is eligible for a Cold Weather Payment (CWP). While these statistics are not related to Cold Weather Payments it is worth noting that in addition to Winter Fuel Payments individuals could also be entitled to Cold Weather Payments.

Statistics are also released on Fuel Poverty in England by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS).

Fuel poverty in England is measured by the Low Income High Costs definition, which considers a household to be in fuel poverty if:

• they have required fuel costs that are above average (the national median level)
• were they to spend that amount they would be left with a residual income below the official poverty line

The key drivers behind fuel poverty are:

• the energy efficiency of the property (and therefore, the energy required to heat and power the home)
• the cost of energy
• household income

Revisions to the statistics

The Department’s policy statement describes how DWP will handle revisions.

A “revision” is defined as any change to a public domain official statistic. Within DWP statistical publications, there are three principal reasons why we might need to make revisions or change to published official statistics. These changes and how they are handled within this series are:

• scheduled revisions – are not part of the defined methodology of this series
• Methodological changes – are not planned however, if for example, the data source or a methodology is improved and changes to historical numbers are significant enough that a revision of previously released tables is needed we will announce the date for the release of revised numbers 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 an error slips through. In the rare case when an error occurs, we thoroughly investigate how it occurred and strengthen our processes where necessary. Any erroneous statistics are removed and corrected as soon as possible. Great care is taken to ensure all users are informed and are fully aware of the error and any implications

Our general policy is to be transparent with users about the need for revisions. Information on any revisions will be provided on the Winter Fuel Payment statistics page and via the Welfare and Benefits statistics community on StatsUserNet.

Status of the statistics

National statistics

The UK Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Designation can be broadly interpreted to mean that the statistics:

• meet identified user needs
• are well explained and readily accessible
• are produced according to sound methods
• are managed impartially and objectively in the public interest

Once statistics have been designated as National Statistics it is a statutory requirement that the Code of Practice shall continue to be observed.

The Winter Fuel Payments caseload and household figures are added to the website at 9:30am on Release Day.

Winter Fuel Payment was introduced in 1997. Statistics are available in the House of Commons (HoC) Library for the period 1999 to 2000 onwards by Local Authority and Westminster Parliamentary Constituency.

Quality Statement

Quality assurance process

1. Legacy source systems

• quality assurance of the source data
• production of statistics

2. Quality assured data sent from DWP to BT

• process using DWP rules and specification
• BT send processed data to BPDTS to issue entitlement letters

3. Data sent back to DWP

• quality assurance of the source data
• production of statistics

Although there is no information made available about the quality of the data from the Data Supplier other than the total count of cases expected on the file, we are assured of quality of the data that feeds into their process, as it is supplied by us. After appropriate quality assurance the data is supplied by us and then is processed using our specifications and rules by BT and BPDTS and further quality assured on return, to produce these statistics.

The data we provide comes from the DWP benefits statistics source data so we have thoroughly quality assured the extracts before they are exported to BPDTS for their processing. This quality assurance process is integral to the production of the National Statistics published within the DWP benefits statistics and a Quality Statement is available for that product which will give more information on the Quality checks we do for that product.

Quality assurance begins as soon as the extracts are received for the DWP benefits statistics and continues right through to publication. The initial quality focus is on the volume of cases in each file. Subsequent assurance examines individual fields in detail to ensure that any unexpected changes are understood and represent genuine changes.

Before any statistical series is released it will undergo strict testing and quality assurance before it is handed over for live running. Only once we are happy that what is being presented is accurate will the series be considered for publication.

Read more on the methods and processes we follow for each release.

To ensure the quality of the provider’s data transfer our loading process and quality assurance routines are run to ensure that the data matches the details given on the transmission document, and any unexpected codes are queried at that stage with BPDTS.

Quality assurance of the WFP statistics themselves has been automated within Excel. This process compares the current and previous outputs to look at percentage differences. Overall sense checks are done with State Pension caseload for that period to provide an indication of accuracy, together with sense checks on Area, Sex, Age and Benefit payments type.

All potential issues with the datasets are raised and investigated internally first and if it cannot be resolved we work with BPDTS to identify potential reasons for the inaccuracy or issue. Changes are often attributed to change in benefit policy and the WFP database extract itself if new fields or codes are added which also effects our loading and processing. Previous sense checks have identified changes to variables on the source data which needed reflecting in the processing code.

The data is processed in the same way for those inside and outside of the UK, since it is based on the same DWP datasets. Part of the work carried out by BT on eligibility is looking at the country variable to establish if the individual meets the criteria for residence for the payment.

Once all checks on the WFP datasets are completed, the lead Statistician will review and sign off the datasets.

Feedback

We welcome feedback

We have had numerous comments from users that the statistics we produce are easy to find and add value to their work or business. These users have also commented on the quality and usability of the data as well as responding positively to the help and advice DWP have provided to them when they have needed it.

DWP received useful comments about the format of the 2015 publication from the ONS Good Practice Team and UK Statistics Authority. Further information is provided below on how you can get involved and provide feedback for the next Winter Fuel Payment publication.

All comments received will be considered and prioritised according to the benefit to our users, available resource and underlying data for example it may not be feasible, in some instances, to produce data to particular level of disaggregation due to the nature of the data collection. Read more information about the methodology.

Plans for any development will be made clear beforehand on the Winter Fuel Payments statistics page on GOV.UK along with a summary of the feedback received and the DWP response.

If you use any of our statistics publications, DWP would be interested in hearing what you use them for and how well they meet your requirements. Please email DWP at stats-consultation@dwp.gov.uk or complete this questionnaire.

Users can also join the Welfare and Benefit Statistics community on StatsUserNet.

Useful links

See this document, the statistics release and supporting tables, along with previous releases.

Details of other National and Official Statistics produced by the Department for Work and Pensions can be found at the following links:

• a list of DWP statistics
• a schedule of statistical releases over the next 12 months
• a list of the most recent releases
• ad hoc statistical analyses that have not been included in our standard publications