DWP benefits statistics: August 2023
Statistics on the main benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
Documents
Details
This is a quarterly National Statistics release of the main DWP-administered benefits via Stat-Xplore or supplementary tables where appropriate.
Scottish devolution: changes to the presentation of DWP statistics
The devolution of social security benefits to the Scottish Government is now having an impact DWP statistics.
On Stat-Xplore, we added a split to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) geography fields to provide breakdowns based on policy ownership. Users of these statistics should make data selections based on these policy ownership lines.
Statistics showing the number of applications and awards to the new Child Disability Payment have been released by Scottish Government. Similar statistics for Adult Disability Payment covering its initial roll out phase are also available.
Please refer to our background information note for more information on presentational changes we have made to our statistics in response to Scottish devolution.
Housing Benefit: Gloucester City Council data
As a result of a criminal cyber-attack, Gloucester City Council is unable to supply DWP with Housing Benefit data until further notice. This has affected Housing Benefit statistics from December 2021. Data problems are unlikely to be fixed until later in 2023. Until then HB statistics that cover Gloucester will be derived from earlier data using the same approach we adopted for Hackney.
Please refer to the background information note for more information on the impacts to our statistics and how we have managed these interruptions.
State Pension
During 2019, a new DWP computer system called “Get Your State Pension” (GYSP) came online to handle State Pension claims. The GYSP system is now handling a sizeable proportion of new claims.
We are not yet able to include GYSP system data in our published statistics for State Pension. The number of GYSP cases are too high to allow us to continue to publish State Pension data on Stat-Xplore. In the short term, we will provide GYSP estimates based on payment systems data. As a temporary measure, State Pension statistics will be published via data tables only. The latest release contains State Pensions estimates for the quarters to August 2022.
For these reasons, a biannual release of supplementary tables to show State Pension deferment increments and proportions of beneficiaries receiving a full amount has been suspended. The latest available time period for these figures remains September 2020.
We are developing new statistical datasets to properly represent both computer systems. Once we have quality assured the new data it will be published on Stat-Xplore, including a refresh of historical data using the best data available.
For more information, see the background information note.
Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit data on Stat-Xplore
Data for abroad cases on the assessments in payments dataset prior to December 2022 were withdrawn on 15 August 2023. It has come to light that a proportion of abroad cases were managed on a separate system which was not linked to our statistics. All abroad cases were migrated to the same payment system that handles the rest of the caseload in November 2022, enabling us to include complete breakdowns for abroad cases on Stat-Xplore from December 2022 onward, but due to data only being held in live systems, complete figures for the period from March 2017 to September 2022 cannot be recovered. Estimates for abroad cases from March 2010 to September 2020 can be found in the notes beneath our previously published data tables.
More information
A statistical summary document is published every six months in February and August each year. It contains a high-level summary of the latest National Statistics on DWP benefits. Commentary on Benefit Combination statistics is now included twice a year as part of this collection. Benefit Combinations statistics are released quarterly on Stat-Xplore.
Find further information about the publication and statistics, including details on changes and revisions, in the background and methodology documents.
Further information about this release can be found on the DWP benefits statistics collection page and in the “Welfare and Benefits” community on StatsUserNet.
If you have any comments or questions, get in touch at: benefits.statistics@dwp.gov.uk