Official Statistics

Child Benefit Small Area Statistics: Quality report, data as at August 2021

Published 29 April 2022

Contact

• organisation unit - Knowledge, Analysis and Intelligence (KAI)

• names – L Baines, R Allan

• function - Statistician, Benefits and Cross Government Analysis

• mail address – KAI Benefits and Cross Government Analysis, HM Revenue and Customs, India Buildings, 31 Water Street, Liverpool, L2 0RD

• email – benefitsandcredits.analysis@hmrc.gov.uk

Introduction

Child Benefit is a payment that you can claim for your child. It is usually paid every four weeks but in some cases can be paid weekly. The payment can be claimed by anyone who qualifies.

As of January 2013, claimants may be liable to a tax charge called the High Income Child Benefit Charge (HICBC). Being liable for this charge does not affect a child’s entitlement but any Child Benefit recipient is liable to repay some or all of their Child Benefit back if they or their partner has an individual income of more than £50,000 per year.

For every additional £100 over the £50,000 threshold that an individual earns, the tax charge due increases by 1%. This means that any recipient whose income (or partner’s income) is £60,000 or higher will be liable to repay their entire Child Benefit entitlement. Alternatively, claimants affected by the HICBC have the option to opt-out of receiving Child Benefit, thereby ceasing their payments.

More information about Child Benefit eligibility can be found on the HMRC website.

Statistical presentation

This publication includes details of the number of families claiming Child Benefit payments as at 31 August 2021, the number, ages and gender of children within those families and their geographical location, at Lower Layer Super Output Area (LSOA) for England and Wales, Super Output Area (SOA) for Northern Ireland and Data Zone for Scotland. Population counts at country, English region and electoral ward level are also shown.

These statistics are based on the same source data as the Child Benefit Statistics annual release publication and totals for higher level geographies will match up.

Statistical processing

Source data

The main source data used to create the Child Benefit statistical publication is the Child Benefit data stream in HMRC as at 31 August 2021, from the Child Benefit System (CBS).

Data collection

The data in the August 2021 extract is sourced from HMRC’s CBS. This holds information on the number of Child Benefit claimants and their children.

Data validation

Checks carried out on the data include:

• analysts check that the number of records loaded into the analysis database is as expected

• analysts check that the number of records as we go through the code is as expected for different files created. These are compared to previous publications

• any large changes in the number of claimants from one statistical release to the next are investigated

Quality management

Quality assurance

All Official Statistics produced by KAI, must meet the standards in the Code of Practice for Statistics produced by the UK Statistics Authority and all analysts adhere to best practice as set out in the ‘Quality’ pillar.

Analytical Quality Assurance (QA) describes the arrangements and procedures put in place to ensure analytical outputs are error free and fit-for-purpose. It is an essential part of KAI’s way of working as the complexity of our work and the speed at which we are asked to provide advice means there is a high risk of error which can have serious consequences on KAI’s and HMRC’s reputation, decisions, and in turn on peoples’ lives.

Every piece of analysis is unique, and as a result there is no single QA checklist that contains all the QA tasks needed for every project. Nonetheless, analysts in KAI use a checklist that summarises the key QA tasks, and is used as a starting point for teams when they are considering what QA actions to undertake.

Teams amend and adapt it as they see fit, to take account of the level of risk associated with their analysis, and the different QA tasks that are relevant to the work.

At the start of a project, during the planning stage, analysts and managers make a risk-based decision on what level of QA is required.

Analysts and managers construct a plan for all the QA tasks that will need to be completed, along with documentation on how each of those tasks are to be carried out and turn this list into a QA checklist specific to the project.

Analysts carry out the QA tasks, update the checklist, and pass onto the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for review and eventual sign off.

Quality assessment

The QA for this project adhered to the framework described in Quality assurance and the specific procedures undertaken were as follows:

Stage 1 – Specifying the question

• previous documentation was reviewed and outputs were agreed with the relevant stakeholders

Stage 2 – Developing a methodology

• the methodology used for the previous year’s analysis was reviewed and was agreed to be appropriate for producing these statistics

Stage 3 – Building and populating a model/piece of code

• most of the analysis in this publication was carried out using SAS and Excel and are in line with good practice guidance

• data inputs were checked to ensure they were fit-for-purpose by reviewing available documentation and, where possible, through direct contact with data suppliers

• QA of the output data was carried out

• the analysis was audited by someone other than the lead analyst – checking code and methodology

Stage 4 – Running and testing the model/code

• results were compared with those produced in previous years and differences understood and determined to be genuine

• results were determined to be explainable and in line with expectations

Stage 5 – Drafting the final outputs

• checks were completed to ensure internal consistency (e.g. totals equal the sum of the components)

• the final outputs were independently proofread and checked

Relevance

The Child Benefit small area statistics are currently published yearly in April, reflecting the data snapshot taken at 31 August. These are Official Statistics and the month of publication is indicated on HMRC’s release schedule with the exact date being published at least 28 days before its release on HMRC’s statistics release calendar.

The statistics contained in this publication will be of interest for anyone that is looking for the latest possible data on Child Benefit. Specifically, there are statistics on the number of children, by age band, in LSOAs in England and Wales, Data Zones in Scotland and SOAs in Northern Ireland.

These statistics may be of interest to academics, think tanks as well as local government and might be used for comparison to comparable tax credits statistics.

Accuracy and reliability

This publication follows the transition to the use of a new Child Benefit data stream in HMRC sourced from the Child Benefit System (CBS). This has led to improvements in the designatory information that accompanies the Child Benefit data. Therefore, there are more up to date claimant postcodes in this publication, when compared to earlier publications.

The statistics are as close to real-time as possible and represent the complete picture as at the 31 August, including back-dated awards with a start date on or before 31 August.

This publication has been produced in line with UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for producing Official Statistics and have also been independently checked by a step by step quality assurance process.

Timeliness and punctuality

The publication month is published in the preceding publication and is produced with enough time to produce the analysis, carry out quality assurance and prepare the right format for publication. The release has since been published each year on the pre-announced date.

Accessibility and clarity

HMRC has an increased focus on accessibility and all documents published for this release have met the department’s accessibility requirements.

Child Benefit statistics are free and accessible to users via the UK National Statistics publication hub.

Publications are available in PDF and Excel formats and can easily be downloaded by users. The latest statistics publication is available in HTML and Open Document Spreadsheet (ODS) formats in compliance with the new accessibility requirements.

Previous publications can be found by visiting HMRC’s statistics on The National Archives website.

Coherence and comparability

The Child Benefit small area statistics have been produced using broadly the same techniques across publications, with small scale additions factored in to new releases based on user needs and feedback. This enables the data production process to be as coherent as possible.

Previously and up until April 2003, Child Benefit was administered by the Department of Social Security (now the Department for Work and Pensions).

Trade-offs between output quality components

We are committed to ensuring these statistics are as accurate as possible and to minimise revisions due to errors, as such, the data will be published in a timely manner taking into account the time needed to carry out full and robust quality assurance.

Data are believed to be of a high standard as they are based on a scan of the computer systems used to administer and pay Child Benefit. If anyone attempts to wilfully supply false information, they may be liable to prosecution. Since the statistics are produced from data representing 100% of Child Benefit recipients, there is no trade-offs in terms of quality as may occur when using a sample of data.

Assessment of user needs and perceptions

Users can provide feedback by contacting the relevant statisticians whose details are provided in the publication. Users are welcomed to share views regarding the Child Benefit small area publication as part of HMRC’s commitment to improving Official Statistics, encouraging and promoting user engagement so statistical outputs can be regularly improved.

HMRC launched a wide-ranging consultation on a range of statistics on 8 February 2021. A response to the consultation on a range of statistics can be found on GOV.UK, though there are no specific proposals relating to Child Benefit statistics.

The outcome of the review focused on streamlining HMRC’s Official Statistics programme, ensuring relevance of statistical publication can be maintained among stakeholders, as well as improving coherence.

Performance, cost and respondent burden

Most of the datasets used for this analysis are taken from the Child Benefit administrative data and therefore the cost of carrying out this analysis is minimal. The compilation of these statistics does not impose any additional burden on employees or employers.

Confidentiality, transparency and security

All datasets used for these statistics are stored in Controlled Access Folders (CAFs) which are accessible to only a few analysts who are part of the production team and therefore have a business need to access the data.

HMRC is committed to the efficient management of information as such our records are compliant with:

• UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) 2018

• The Data Protection Act 2018

• The Data Protection Act 1998

• The Public Records Act 1968

• The Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI) (in particular the Code of Practice on Records Management issued under s46 FOI which requires that public authorities have effective record-keeping arrangements in place).

The figures have been independently rounded to the nearest 5 and some values have been suppressed due to low underlying counts, in line with HMRC’s Dominance and Disclosure policy.