Guidance

Work and Health Programme statistics: background information and methodology

Updated 28 November 2024

Applies to England and Wales

The latest release of these statistics can be found in the Work and Health Programme statistics collection.

The underlying data can be accessed through Stat-Xplore, an online tool for exploring some of the main Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) statistics.

1. About these statistics

Purpose

The Work and Health Programme (WHP) statistics have been developed to provide the primary official source of information about the number of people who have been referred to the programme along with information about those who go on to start, receive their first earnings from employment and those who achieve a job outcome.

Referrals to the Work and Health Programme (WHP), including WHP Pioneer, ended on 30 September as planned. This does not affect the data in the November 2024 release, which covers data up to the end of August 2024, but future publications will be impacted.

Since May 2024, the statistics have also included data on WHP Pioneer. Read more information about WHP Pioneer.

They enable a variety of users to be informed about different components of the programme, such as WHP provider performance metrics as well as many demographics such as geographic location and personal characteristics of the participants involved.

The statistics are published on a quarterly basis to best meet user needs without compromising the quality of the data. All data are available on Stat-Xplore.

Users and uses

The statistics are used by a wide variety of people and teams within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), other central government departments, WHP providers/partners and other external users such as local authorities across England and Wales.

The users and uses of these statistics include:

• government ministers – to monitor the progress of an important government policy/programme
• MPs and House of Lords – frequently used to answer parliamentary questions and for monitoring and accountability
• government policy, strategy, operational support and associated analytical teams – to inform management information, policy development and to monitor the impact of changes over time
• DWP private and press office – to understand the depth of analysis and the impact the statistics have in the media and ministerial debate
• local government partners – to inform local-level planning and support to local government partner areas (more information on how these areas operate are available)
• academia and students – for research purposes and to support lectures, presentations, and conferences
• journalists – to support an accurate and coherent story being told about the WHP
• local authorities – to monitor local trends
• charities and the general public – to respond to ad hoc requests and requests made under the Freedom of Information Act

Strengths and limitations

The statistics are created from administrative data sources and can be used as the official measure for a number of different WHP metrics. Using administrative data sources, including real-time earnings (RTE), allows the Department to access up-to-date information which gives a timely and accurate representation of how the WHP helps participants find work. Some of the data used to produce these statistics are updated daily providing re-assurance figures are accurate when they are released. Another benefit of using administrative data sources is the potential to link and merge data from other administrative sources to obtain a more complete picture for individuals and providers, which in turn allows us to produce a more robust series of demographic information.

Another strength of these statistics is data availability and timeliness. Data is available from when the WHP launched in November 2017 through to 3 months prior to the latest date upon release. For example, data up to May 2023 became available in the August 2023 release. Since these statistics are also updated on a quarterly basis, this allows users to keep track of up-to-date WHP progress at regular intervals.

DWP has collaborated with Local Government Partners (LGPs) on this work, providing LGPs with a formal opportunity to contribute to discussions, provide insight and advise DWP how statistics can be presented to fairly showcase differences between local areas. For example, most providers/LGPs use the adult-rate of the National Living Wage however there are some occurrences where the London Living or Real Living Wage is used to aid more realistic comparisons when looking at performance due to the geographic difference in wage levels (see CPA and LGP locations in England and Wales for more information).

Finally, DWP remains committed to sharing what we plan to publish, in terms of the style and range of data and welcome input and engagement with LGPs, which has added value to our past releases.

The WHP was progressively rolled out across all areas between November 2017 and March 2018. For this reason, there are certain limitations when comparing areas against each other, as some areas have had more time on the programme than others.

The WHP was initially delivered through a Randomised Control Trial design – this publication reports only on those on the WHP and not the other two groups of the trial, the Randomised Control Group or Public Sector Comparator. Entry to the Randomised Control Group and Public Sector Comparator was suspended at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has since been agreed not to resume, to maximise support for claimants.

Within the publication, information is available within the chart that details the distribution of all WHP individual referrals and starts across CPAs, from November 2017 to the latest available information. For individuals with multiple referrals, the participant will always be included in the CPA in which they were first referred to the WHP in the “Individuals referred” measure. If that individual did not go on to start on the programme, they will be shown in the “Individuals referred who have not yet started” measure for the CPA they were first referred in. However, if the same individual starts on the programme, they will instead be shown in the “Individuals referred who have started” measure for the CPA where they started. Note, there is a possibility this area may differ to the area the participant was first referred if the participant moved locations during that period.

A strategy for the release of official statistics on the WHP was first published on 7 August 2018 and last updated on 28 November 2024.

While every effort is made to collect data to the highest quality, as with all administrative data it is dependent on the accuracy of information entered into the system. Checks are made throughout the process from collection of the data to producing the statistics, but it is possible that some data entry or processing errors may filter through to the data used to produce the statistics.

2. Background information

What is the Work and Health Programme?

The Work and Health Programme (WHP) was launched in England and Wales between November 2017 and April 2018 to help the following 3 eligibility groups:

1. Disability group – voluntary for disabled people as defined in the Equality Act (2010). This is the main group that the WHP is aimed at.

2. Early Access group – voluntary and aimed at people who may need support to move into employment and are in one of several priority groups (for example homeless, ex-armed forces, care leavers, refugees).

3. Long-term Unemployed group – mandatory for Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) or Universal Credit (UC) claimants who have reached 24 months of unemployment. Note: referrals to the WHP LTU group are only available between April 2018 and October 2022.

People are referred by jobcentres to work with organisations known as providers from the public, private and voluntary sectors. Providers are paid a service delivery fee as well as outcome-related payments when a person receives a job outcome.

The WHP was originally scheduled to stop taking all referrals at the end of October 2022. However, the Department for Work and Pensions extended referrals for the Disability and Early Access Groups from November 2022 to September 2024 and agreed with providers and LGPs to provide support for around 100,000 more people, most of whom will be disabled.

Up until the end of October 2022, the WHP was part funded as a European Union funded project as part of the European Social Fund (ESF) 2014 to 2020. From 1 November 2022, the funding from the ESF stopped and the WHP is now funded through Treasury funding for the national Contract Package Areas (CPAs) and grant funded for the LGPs.

The WHP offers:

• tailored support to meet individual needs
• utilising contacts so that providers can offer unique support to claimants
• strong links to national and local employers to help participants overcome specific barriers to work

WHP providers integrate with local services and health provisions and support local service integration plans, to ensure that progress made by individuals whilst they are on the programme will be sustainable. The support includes linking up with health, social care and other local services to meet health needs if they are a barrier to work, but the main focus is on overcoming the main barriers to employment not just health support.

Examples of the type of support available may include:

• participants having personalised support with regular face to face contact, mentoring and peer support
• integrated access to specialist support networks at a local level including health and wellbeing professionals
• support from dedicated employer experts with knowledge of the local labour market and job opportunities

Providers will support participants for up to 15 months (456 calendar days). This may be extended for a further 6 months (182 days) to provide in-work support, to a maximum total of 21 months (638 days) on the WHP. An employment outcome would need to be achieved within the 638 days.

Once a participant starts work the providers offer personalised in-work support, to meet the needs of the individual. They ensure that appropriate arrangements for continuation of support, including Access to Work, is in place before the provider support ends.

On 13 September 2023, the Work and Health Programme (WHP) was expanded to include a new element called WHP Pioneer. WHP Pioneer differs from the WHP as it targets economically ‘inactive’ claimants in the disability and early access groups, supporting them to find sustained work through ‘place and train’. The aim is to place participants into work at the earliest opportunity after an initial work assessment. ‘Active’ claimants will continue to receive support through WHP.

Economically ‘inactive’ people are defined as those who are eligible for WHP and are either claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or are not in the Intensive Work Search regime on Universal Credit at the point of referral.

The WHP closed to new referrals on 30 September 2024. Support will continue until July 2026 for all those who had already been referred to the programme.

The WHP was gradually rolled out from 27 November 2017 to national CPAs, then devolved LGPs.  WHP Pioneer was rolled out on 13 September 2023 across all areas.

Table of rollout dates

Area	Provider	Date
North West	Ingeus	27 November 2017
Wales	Maximus	1 December 2017
Central England	Shaw Trust	15 January 2018
North East	Reed In Partnership	15 January 2018
Southern	Seetec Pluss	15 January 2018
Home Counties	Shaw Trust	15 January 2018
Greater Manchester Combined Authority	Ingeus and The Growth Company	29 January 2018
West London Alliance	Shaw Trust	26 February 2018
Central London Forward	Ingeus	1 March 2018
South London Partnership	Reed In Partnership	1 March 2018
Local London	Maximus	1 March 2018

In other locations, local areas have influenced the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) thinking on the design of the programme and the evaluation of potential suppliers, as Devolved Deal Areas (DDAs). These are:

• Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
• Sheffield City Region
• West of England
• West Midlands Combined Authority
• Liverpool City Region
• Cardiff Capital Region (a City Deal area)

As a means for evaluation, the WHP programme was the main strand of a randomised control designed delivery. A small percentage of claimants who were eligible for the WHP were randomly allocated to a control group and given standard Jobcentre Plus support for 24 months. This group will support the evaluation of WHP.

Also, as part of the evaluation of the WHP some districts operated a similar service called Public Sector Comparator (PSC), to see if jobcentres could deliver similar or better performance in terms of outcomes and costs.

The PSC rolled out in January 2018 and runs alongside WHP in 4 districts:

• Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland
• Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Isle of Wight
• Leicestershire and Northamptonshire
• Devon and Cornwall

Entry to the Randomised Control Group and Public Sector Comparator was suspended at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has since been agreed not to resume, to maximise support for claimants.

CPA and LGP locations in England and Wales

The WHP is delivered by 5 providers across 6 areas, known as CPAs. In some CPAs, the government has designed WHP in consultation with Local Enterprise Partnerships and city regions (partnerships between local authorities and businesses). These are known as DDAs. In London and Greater Manchester, where devolution deals are in place, the WHP is commissioned and contract managed by the local authorities, known as LGPs, who are match-funded by the ESF.

The map shows how areas are split and which areas are classified as CPAs as opposed to LGPs.

Local Government Partners

There are key contextual differences to consider between providers and LGPs. Participants must earn above a fixed threshold to achieve a job outcome through any provider nationally or in an LGP area. However, the thresholds used by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) and West London Alliance (WLA) are greater than those used by other LGPs and by the national providers of the WHP. LGPs, as solely urban areas, have different demographics to CPAs. Therefore, the demographics of eligible cohorts may be different to those of the national CPAs. LGP services started about four months after the national CPAs.

Before the WHP extension in November 2022, LGPs secured extra funding from the ESF to increase participant numbers, whilst national WHP providers did not. Actual job availability in different areas does not necessarily scale in line with the increase in participant numbers. As a result, comparisons between regions and providers should be made with great care and the contextual differences between CPAs and LGPs should be considered, for example there are differences between the outcome definitions used.

London

The boroughs of London are grouped into 4 London Local Government Partners:

• West London Alliance
• Local London
• South London Partnership
• Central London Forward

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)

The GMCA is made up of the 10 Greater Manchester councils which are:

• Bolton
• Bury
• Manchester
• Oldham
• Rochdale
• Salford
• Stockport
• Tameside
• Trafford
• Wigan

Changes to the WHP in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which spread to the UK in early 2020, affected the entire population with many businesses unable to trade and many employees being temporarily unable to work. Statistics covered in the WHP publication include data which covers the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, temporary changes were made to the WHP, which resulted in anomalous trends for the main programme metrics i.e., referrals, starts, job outcomes, first earnings from employment and programme performance.

During the earlier months of the pandemic, the face-to-face delivery of the WHP by providers was suspended. This meant that providers took alternative routes to service delivery including digital options and a telephony service to ensure support continued. DWP also deployed several measures to deal with the unprecedented levels of demand on the department, including additional signposting to the WHP and enabling referrals by providers for individuals who were eligible.

Throughout the pandemic, the government advice was to stay at home. Given that the programme is largely voluntary, this resulted in lower numbers of referrals to the WHP, however DWP’s priority throughout the pandemic remained to be ensuring people got their benefit payments and support was available for those who needed it the most.

Overall, the pandemic had a significant impact on the delivery and performance of the WHP and on the labour market. Employment sectors were unable to recruit and job opportunities were significantly reduced, however, as employment sectors started to re-open and new sectors have emerged, vacancies did begin to increase. This context should be considered when assessing the success or timeliness of outcomes from the programme in relation to this period.

During the COVID-19 pandemic mandatory referrals to the WHP for the Long-term Unemployed (LTU) group were paused. Although mandatory referrals for the LTU group resumed in May 2022, places were still available on the WHP if DWP Work Coaches considered it to be beneficial for a claimant.

Also, during the period of the pandemic, the WHP moved temporarily from a performance by results payment model to a “cost” payment model to allow for continued support for those customers most in need. Under this system the providers’ costs for delivering the contracted service were met, rather than paying a service fee and outcome-related payments. For the LGP areas there were several different cost models in place.

WHP Pioneer

On 13 September 2023, the Work and Health Programme (WHP) was expanded to include a new element called WHP Pioneer. WHP Pioneer differs from the WHP as it targets economically ‘inactive’ claimants in the disability and disadvantaged groups supporting them to find sustained work through ‘place and train’. The aim is to place participants into work at the earliest opportunity after an initial work assessment. ‘Active’ claimants will continue to receive support through the WHP core programme.

Economically ‘inactive’ people are defined as those who are eligible for WHP and are not claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance or are not in the Intensive Work Search regime on Universal Credit at the point of referral.

The introduction of WHP Pioneer means there may be changes in the numbers and demographic of people being referred to WHP, this is because some people who would have been referred to WHP have instead been referred to WHP Pioneer. The introduction of WHP Pioneer and subsequent promotion of the programme may also have increased awareness of WHP.

Due to the differences in people being referred, and in the support offered, comparisons should not be made between WHP and WHP Pioneer statistics.

Since the May 2024 release this publication has included statistics on referrals, individual referrals, and starts on WHP Pioneer. The most recent release (published 28 November 2024) also includes figures on first earnings from employment and job outcomes from WHP Pioneer. More detailed breakdowns of these will be made available in future publications when data is available.

3. Methodology

Definitions, Measures and Assumptions

The statistics evaluate 6 different metrics which occur at different stages on the WHP journey. These are:

1. referrals – work coaches in jobcentres will send details of a person wanting to join the WHP to a provider. Individuals can be referred more than once if they do not start. Figures presented in this publication do not include cancelled or rejected referrals.

2. individuals referred – since one individual can have multiple referrals, individuals referred is the number of individual people referred. This means only the first referral per person is counted.

3. starts – a start on the programme is recorded when a WHP participant attends the initial face-to-face meeting with the provider. Most starts should take place within 15 working days, although starts outside this window may occur if the customer does not attend the initial meeting within this time frame.

4. first earnings from employment – the point at which a participant achieves their first earnings from their first employment whilst on the programme. A participant may not necessarily go on to achieve a job outcome. Statistics on first earnings from employment do not include earnings from self-employment.

5. job outcomes – a provider is classed as achieving a job outcome when a participant reaches either a specified level of earnings once in employment (which varies across the different areas – see detailed explanation of job outcome expectations for details) or 6 months of being in self-employment.

6. performance expectations – job outcome estimates derived by DWP prior to the programme start in comparison with actual job outcome figures.

Statistics on referrals, individuals referred, starts, first earnings from employment, and job outcomes are now available for WHP Pioneer.

The WHP is available for 3 different eligibility types:

1. Disability Group – the disability group is voluntary for disabled people, as defined by the Equality Act 2010. This is the main group the WHP is aimed at.

2. Early Access Group – the early access group is voluntary and aimed at people who may need additional support to move into employment and are in one of several priority groups (note: some areas have added additional groups to the Early Access group, in line with local priorities, which are not listed below):

• ex-offender or offender
• carer
• ex-carer
• homeless person
• former member HM Armed Forces
• member HM Armed Forces Reserves
• partner of current or former Armed Forces personnel
• drug or alcohol dependencies (presenting as a barrier to employment)
• care leaver
• refugee
• young people in gangs
• victims of domestic violence

3. Long-term Unemployment Group – the long-term unemployed (LTU) group is mandatory and is for Jobseeker’s Allowance or Universal Credit claimants who have reached 24 months of unemployment. Referrals to the LTU group began in April 2018. They were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic until May 2022, but WHP places were available if a Jobcentre Plus work coach considered this to be beneficial for a claimant. The labour market employment support landscape recently changed with the launch of the ‘Plan for Jobs’, including the Restart Scheme. From November 2022 anyone LTU will be considered for the Restart Scheme. Therefore, referrals to the WHP LTU group are only available between April 2018 and October 2022.

WHP Pioneer is available to the disability and early access groups.

The publication also reports across 3 main area types:

1. Contract Package Areas (CPAs) – WHP is delivered by five providers across 6 areas known as Contract Package Areas. These areas were the first to deliver the WHP in the phased rollout.

2. Local Government Partners (LGPs) – the government is committed to devolution and decentralising power and responsibility for delivering a WHP equivalent programme in the GMCA and to the four sub-regional groups of boroughs in London. These are known as Local Government Partners. To enable this, DWP made arrangements for GMCA and London sub-regions to design, procure and contract manage their own WHP with Grant Funding paid by DWP. This has been matched funded with the ESF, allowing London and Manchester to increase the number of people supported on the programme.

3. Devolved Deal Areas (DDAs) – in some areas, the government has designed WHP in consultation with Local Enterprise Partnerships and city regions. These are known as Devolved Deal Areas. These areas will have a strong voice in the ongoing monitoring of the performance on the programme in their areas.

Detailed explanation of job outcome expectations

Origin of job outcome expectations

The expectations used in the WHP statistics are the expected number of job outcomes for the programme, either split by eligibility groups or split by providers. The expectations used in this series were drawn up by DWP as a performance anticipation for the programme when it was designed. The expectations are calculated using 2 key measures:

1. the proportion of individuals who have started the programme in any given month that are expected to achieve a job outcome at some stage

2. how quickly these job outcomes are expected to be achieved throughout the individual’s time on the WHP

As an illustrative example, if 500 individuals started on the WHP in January 2020, they could achieve a job outcome at some stage of the programme. The expectation may be that 1% of these individuals would achieve a job outcome in each of February, March and April 2020. The expectation for the WHP would be that 5 individuals from the January 2020 cohort would be expected to achieve a job outcome in each of those 3 months. In total we would then expect 15 individuals from the January 2020 cohort to have achieved a job outcome by the end of April 2020.

These figures were defined by looking at the performance of similar historical programmes, for example ‘The Work Programme’ and ‘Work Choice’ programme, when the WHP was designed. As a result, a separate expectation for each of the three eligibility groups was created.

The DWP pre-programme expectations differ from the contractual expectations. These contractual expectations were supplied by each provider in support of their bids and are generally higher than those defined by DWP. These statistics use the DWP-defined expectations created at the start of the WHP as users can hold greater confidence in these more achievable expectations.

When pre-extension referrals ceased at the end of October 2022 it was agreed subsequent cohorts would be assessed against a new contractual profile based upon, although not identical to, DWP’s pre-programme expectation. Figures for the latest release still use the DWP pre-programme expectations and will consider moving to the new contractual profile if appropriate.

Important context for performance against expectations

There are likely to be many factors contributing to differences in actual performance relative to prior expectation.

LGPs designed elements of the programme, selected their own providers and manage the WHP in their regions. Although these regions are often referred to by the LGP name, it is important to remember there is joint accountability between the providers and the LGPs themselves.

As part of the devolution agreement for LGPs to manage their own WHP contracts, LGPs secured an equivalent amount of funding from the ESF to increase the number of places on the WHP in these LGP areas. This provides direct added value. As a result, the expected volume of starts was greater for these LGPs than if they had funding arrangements equivalent to the other national contracts. This is important because although there was an increased volume of starts, the opportunities for job outcomes were not proportionately larger in these areas. Therefore, it could be more difficult to get this larger volume of participants to achieve an outcome.

There are several factors which haven’t been accounted for when comparing performance including socio-economic factors such as educational attainment, over-population, and different demographic groups across regions. Therefore, users should bear this in mind when comparing across regions. Also, the WHP began in CPAs a few months before it started in LGPs.

Some further contextual information is outlined in the following section, around the differing minimum wage levels used by providers and LGPs.

Differences in wage levels

The funding that providers of the WHP receive is partly based on the number of job outcomes achieved. They are paid when a participant reaches a specified level of earnings in employment.

Across all providers and LGPs in the WHP, this earnings level is equivalent to working 16 hours per week for 26 weeks at a specified minimum rate; or when a participant reaches six months of being in self-employment. However, the specified minimum rate used for the 16 hours per 26 weeks’ threshold, varies across the UK.

All providers delivering the national WHP (not the LGPs) use the adult-rate of the National Living Wage (NLW). This is the same for three of the five LGPs: Central London Forward, Local London and South London Partnership. The earnings threshold for national providers and these three LGPs is equivalent to working 16 hours per week for 26 weeks at the NLW.

Please note that the NLW changes each year on 1 April.

However, the West London Alliance earnings threshold is equivalent to the WHP participant working at the London Living Wage (LLW) for 16 hours per week for 26 weeks. For GMCA the earnings threshold is equivalent to the participant working at the Real Living Wage (RLW) for 16 hours per week for 26 weeks, both the LLW and the RLW are higher than the NLW.

Users should take this context into account, as the earnings levels used by LGPs and national providers does directly affect the number of job outcomes achieved and therefore the funding they receive.

Data Sources

A range of data sources are used to produce WHP statistics.

Provider Referral and Payment System (PRaP)

An administrative data source that DWP and WHP providers use to record key data attributes and events in the journey of WHP participants. Historically, this was updated monthly and presented as cumulative data snapshots of referrals and payments for each DWP programme provider (various employment support schemes) and was broken down into different referral groups for each programme.

Whilst this data source met all data requirements to accurately report WHP progress, PRaP underwent internal work to improve timeliness, efficiency and modernise the way analysts would be able to access the data. It is now available via a Historic Data Store (HDS) which is a set of relational data tables extracted from the PRaP administrative system and updated each working day. The data stored in the PRaP HDS covers all current and recent employment programmes and from May 2022, was the main source of data used in the WHP production code to form the base of the statistics. These include dates and times of decisions, referrals, starts, outcomes, payments, eligibility types, provider locations and much more.

Since the PRaP HDS is updated daily, this provides users with more confidence that figures are correct and recent. It also provides a richer source of information which expands the potential for new future WHP measures.

Real Time Earnings (RTE)

Since the WHP is delivered by providers in combination with LGPs in certain areas of the country, there is some payment information that is not captured by PRaP outcomes and must be supplemented with another data source.

The PRaP HDS contains an extract of a RTE file which gets updated daily and includes earnings and payment information for all WHP claimants in LGP areas. This is used in conjunction with the payment data from PRaP to include the payments for the LGPs that are not captured in PRaP so that we can create a broader picture of outcomes information for the programme.

Customer Information System (CIS)

The Customer Information System contains a record for all individuals who have registered and been issued with a National Insurance number. It is used in combination with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL) to enrich the WHP cohort dataset with geographical information. Gender and date of birth for claimants are also taken directly from the CIS.

Gender is measured as male, female or unknown. Date of birth is measured as a date.

Age is derived directly from date of birth, by calculating how long a claimant has been alive from their date of birth to the referral date. Age is available as single year or in 5-year age bands up to 60, over 60 group and unknown or missing.

National Statistics Postcode Lookup (NSPL)

The NSPL contains a record for all Census Output Areas in Great Britain. It is used in combination with CIS to enrich the WHP cohort dataset with geographical information.

4. Revisions

DWP has a policy for planned revisions describing how we will handle revisions and give confidence that revisions will be handled in a transparent manner. For WHP statistics, to reflect any updates to the figures, the full historical statistical series is refreshed each time the figures are released.

We allow some time for additional information to be incorporated into DWP’s data systems. This period is referred to as “retrospection”. Information may be submitted, corrected, and then re-submitted sometime after the event occurred. This means data presented in each release is subject to some retrospection and figures may vary slightly in subsequent releases.

To ensure retrospection is minimal and the statistics represent a more complete picture of events, data has a 3-month lag. This means in November we publish data to the end of August.

Please be aware that documents published between February 2021 and February 2022 contain a minor undercount for the number of individuals referred to WHP between October 2020 and November 2021. Whilst figures were affected, there was no material impact, and the story of the statistics has not changed. This issue was corrected in May 2022 and for all subsequent releases.

While conducting a Quality Assurance exercise in August 2023, we identified two issues within the data for our individuals referred measure and one issue within the data for our job outcomes measure:

1. A small number of individuals were being duplicated where there were multiple referrals.

2. Another set of individuals, with multiple referrals but where a cancellation had occurred on at least one of them, were being discounted from the series when they should have been included.

3. A very small number of job outcomes were calculated from payments that had been reversed in the source system and not picked up, causing a minor overestimation.

All 3 issues were all corrected within the series from August 2023. Overall, the impact to affected measures was minimal (around 0.3% of cases across the time series) and did not change the story of the WHP statistics. No other measures were affected.

5. Quality

A standard set of quality assurance procedures are conducted for each statistical release. They consist of checking for duplicate, missing or contradictory information, as well as trends and variations in characteristics, time series and area breakdowns.

They follow a set path as shown in the table.

Stage	Path
1	Data is regularly updated in administrative data sources
2	Data is compared against internal Management Information (MI) and other internal sources to verify data quality, trends and variations
3	Data is processed using statistical analysis software and any errors in the process are noted and corrected
4	Quality assurance methods are undertaken at the end of processing against previous runs and internal MI to ensure no discrepancies in the data
5	Tables produced are based on templates to ensure consistency across time
6	Tables are compared to previous releases and internal MI for changes in trends
7	Publication is updated with new figures and graphs whilst ensuring that any changes are within expected limits
8	Release information via data tables, statistical bulletin and Stat-Xplore

6. Status and administrative procedures for these statistics

Status

The statistics in the WHP bulletin are classified as Official Statistics. The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 defines ‘Official Statistics’ as all those statistical outputs produced by the UK Statistics Authority’s executive office (the Office for National Statistics), by central Government departments and agencies, by the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and by other Crown bodies (over 200 bodies in total).

The statistics in the WHP bulletin have been developed to follow and comply with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The Code encourages and supports producers of statistics to maintain their independence and to ensure adequate resourcing for statistical production. It helps producers and users of statistics by setting out the necessary principles and practices to produce statistics that are trustworthy, high quality and of public value.

Data confidentiality

The Code of Practice for Statistics, specifically Principle T6: Data Governance sets out principles for how we protect data on individuals from being disclosed. In the WHP statistics, we use several disclosure control methods to ensure the safety of the individuals on the programme by reducing the risk of identification.

Introduced Random Error

Figures in this publication are derived from Stat-Xplore and are subject to Introduced Random Error. This is to ensure that no data is released which could risk the identification of individuals.

Many classifications used within WHP statistics have an uneven distribution of data throughout their categories, in particular across geographical areas. When geographical area is tabulated with other breakdowns, such as age or gender, the number in the table cell could be small. These small numbers increase the risk of identifying individuals in the statistics.

Even when variables are more evenly distributed in classifications, the risk persists. The more detailed the classifications, and the more of them that are applied in constructing a table, the greater the incidence of very small cells.

Care is taken in the specification of tables to minimise the risk of identifying individuals. In addition, a technique has been developed to randomly adjust cell values. Random adjustment of the data is considered the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable data. When the technique is applied, all cells may be slightly adjusted to prevent any identifiable data being exposed. These adjustments result in small introduced random errors. However, the information value of the table is not impaired. The technique allows very large tables, for which there is a strong customer demand, to be produced even though they contain numbers of very small cells.

It is not possible to determine which individual figures have been affected by random error adjustments, but the small variance which may be associated with derived totals can, for the most part, be ignored.

No reliance should be placed on small cells as they are more heavily impacted by random adjustment, respondent and processing errors.

Many different classifications are available in WHP statistics tables and the tables are produced for a variety of geographical areas. The effect of the introduced random error is minimised if the statistic required is found direct from a tabulation rather than from aggregating more finely classified data.

Similarly, rather than aggregating data from small areas to obtain statistics about a larger standard geographic area, published data for the larger area should be used wherever possible.

When calculating proportions, percentages or ratios from cross-classified or small area tables, the random error introduced can be ignored except when very small cells are involved, in which case the impact on percentages and ratios can be significant.

Rounding

Alongside the introduction of random errors, data in the statistical bulletin are subject to additional rounding unless otherwise stated. The level of rounding applied, which is dependent on the magnitude of the figure being quoted, is shown in the table below.

Range	Round to nearest
0 to 1,000	10
1,001 to 10,000	100
10,001 to 100,000	1,000
100,001 to 1,000,000	10,000
1,000,001 to 10,000,000	100,000
10,000,001 to 100,000,000	1,000,000

Users should note that percentages shown within the statistical bulletin are calculated using numbers prior to rounding and rounded to the nearest whole percentage point.

Pre-release Access

The Code of Practice for Statistics, principle T3: Orderly release specifically references pre-release guidance in sections T3.3 & T3.4.

A list of officials who have received pre-release access to WHP Official Statistics up to 24 hours in advance of publication is available on the Pre-release access to DWP statistics page.

Frequency

WHP statistics are released on a quarterly basis. Quarterly data are published in February, May, August and November alongside a statistical bulletin providing detailed commentary on the latest statistics. The exact dates for the monthly and quarterly releases are listed in the statistics release calendar.

Stat-Xplore, an online tool for exploring some of DWP’s main statistics, contains all the latest WHP data for the measures listed above.

7. Contact

We would love to hear your views on our statistical publication, and suggestions for future developments on the series.

Please send your views on the WHP statistics by:

• emailing us at epass.team@dwp.gov.uk or,
• visiting the Welfare and Benefit Statistics community on the Royal Statistical Society StatsUserNet page

For media enquiries on these statistics, please contact the DWP press office.

ISBN: 978-1-78659-740-3