DWP benefits statistics: May 2021
Statistics on the main benefits administered by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Applies to England, Scotland and Wales
Documents
Details
National Statistics release of the main DWP-administered benefits via Stat-Xplore or supplementary tables where appropriate.
Housing Benefit
An interruption in the supply of data from Hackney Borough Council has affected Housing Benefit (HB) statistics from December 2020. Data problems are unlikely to be fixed until late into 2021 and until then HB statistics that cover Hackney will be derived from earlier data. This means estimates for London and Hackney on Stat-Xplore will deteriorate in their quality and accuracy. To find out what we are doing to maintain our HB statistics, please refer to our background information note for the DWP benefits statistics. Please also note caveats and warnings on Stat-Xplore where they appear.
State Pension
During 2019, a new DWP computer system called “Get Your State Pension” (GYSP) came online to handle new State Pension claims. Initially, the GYSP system handled claims received online through the GOV.UK site, where people have been sent invitations to claim in this new way.
The number of State Pension recipients being handled by the new system has been gradually building up, and at November 2020 there were approximately 47,100 cases in payment on the new system. This represents 0.4% of the total number of State Pension recipients.
We are not yet able to include GYSP data in our published statistics for State Pension. Figures will therefore carry an undercount. We are developing new statistical datasets that will enable us include them in the near future. Once we have quality assured the new data we will announce further plans for their inclusion.
Further information about this release can be found on the DWP benefits statistics collection page and in the “Welfare and Benefits” community on StatsUserNet.
We now have a dedicated email address for these statistics. If you have any comments or questions, get in touch at: benefits.statistics@dwp.gov.uk.
Also published
Also published as part of this release as data tables are statistics on:
More information
A statistical summary document is published every 6 months in February and August each year. It contains a high level summary of the latest National Statistics on DWP benefits.
Find further information about the statistics, including details on changes and revisions, in the background and methodology documents.
Updates to this page
Published 18 May 2021Last updated 2 November 2021 + show all updates
-
Revised data tables - the benefit rates for 2020 to 2021 have been corrected under the notes for tables 3 and 4 on the notes tab.
-
First published.