Accredited official statistics

Family Resources Survey: background information and methodology

Published 27 March 2025

Introduction

This background report accompanies the main Family Resources Survey 2023 to 2024 publication. The Family Resources Survey (FRS) publishes annual information on a representative sample of the incomes and circumstances of individuals living in private households in the United Kingdom. 

The purpose of this report is to provide contextual information to aid understanding of the statistics presented in the main publication. In summary, it outlines:

• Statistical concepts and definitions used
• Adherence to the Code of Practice for Statistics
• Coherence and comparability of the data against other sources, as well as against previous years
• Strengths, limitations, and trade-offs of the information presented
• Improvements and other changes in the collection of data

Our quality strategy commits us to increase transparency and trust in our statistics. We therefore include information on the quality of our statistics within our statistical bulletins, and since 2022 to 2023 have published Background Information and Methodology reports in line with GSS Background Quality Report (BQR) specifications.

BQR specifications are designed to help our users understand the strengths and limitations of the data, so that they can make the best decisions on how to use it. This helps mitigate against the risk of misusing data. This report therefore assesses quality against the Quality Assurance Framework for the European Statistical System, which defines  the quality of a statistical product as the “fitness for purpose” of that product.

A detailed description of the FRS sampling methodology, fieldwork operations, data processing and data source quality management are presented in the accompanying Quality Assessment Report

Editorial team

Afrika Anfruns, Anna Britton, Claire Cameron, Mitch Chambers, Oliver Davies, Scott Fox, Freya Lawrence, Jake Lipscombe, Elizabeth MacInnes, Thejani Mahadiulwewa, Cait Marlow, Justyna Owen, Clive Warhurst

Acknowledgements

We wish to give special acknowledgement to:

• The respondents in households across the United Kingdom who agreed, and made time, to be interviewed
• The interviewers from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), NatCen Social Research and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency who conducted and collated the interviews
• All those who have contributed to the 2023 to 2024 publication, through providing quality assurance and feedback
• Our web support team
• The UK Data Service (UKDS), who distribute our research data, as well as the ONS Secure Research Service

Feedback

Family Resources Survey statistics are published by the FRS team, part of Surveys Branch, at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

If you have any comments or questions about any aspect of the FRS, or are interested in receiving information on consultations, planned changes, and advance notice of future releases, please contact: team.frs@dwp.gov.uk

Lead Statistician: M A Vaughan

1 Overview of the Statistic

1.1 History of the Statistic

The FRS is a continuous survey that collects information on the incomes and circumstances of individuals living in a representative sample of private households within the United Kingdom. The survey has been running in Great Britain since October 1992 and was extended to cover Northern Ireland in the survey year 2002 to 2003.

Over the period of more than 30 years, the publication has evolved significantly; the publication has adapted to changes in information technology, publication standards (including internet standards) and user needs in the field of household income research. Several routes are now available for users to access these statistics, which are described in later sections.

1.2 Status of the Statistics

These accredited official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) in 2011 and were then confirmed as National Statistics by the OSR in November 2012.

FRS statistics comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.

The OSR published its Review of Income-based Poverty Statistics on 19 May 2021. This report aimed to ensure that statistics on poverty provide a robust evidence base for national and local policy development and decision making. Several recommendations were implemented in the 2021 to 2022 publication, which have been maintained in subsequent publications.

1.3 Recent improvements to the FRS

Auditing of processing methodology

Auditing of processing methodology is a regular feature of survey-derived data. Subsequent changes to imputation methodology and the construction of derived variables have led to improvements in the quality of statistics.

Review of the imputation methodology for Scottish Child Payment.

The FRS began collecting data on Scottish Child Payment (SCP) in the 2020 to 2021 survey year, following introduction of the benefit in February 2021. The FRS caseload as collected via the survey has remained substantially below official caseloads published by Scottish Government (SG). To reduce under-reporting, receipt of SCP was imputed (for eligible benefit units) for the 2022 to 2023 survey year. This methodology has been further revised for 2023 to 2024, in consultation with SG analysts, to provide more accurate estimates of state support income in the FRS dataset. 

SCP is now included in the published methodology table M_6. This compares the grossed estimates of benefit recipients in the data, with the total caseload on SCP from Social Security Scotland.  Details of the revised methodology are described in section 5.1. Note that data for previous years has not been revised. 

Addition of Scottish Winter Heating Payment

As a routine update of the devolved Scottish benefits, we have agreed with SG colleagues how to impute this benefit amount. As the FRS questionnaire does not ask about receipt of this benefit, amounts are imputed within the dataset for those eligible. The approach is similar to that of Winter Fuel Payments. For 2023 to 2024, the ADULT table within the dataset will feature both a variable to flag receipt (or not) and also include pound amounts within its income variables INOTHBEN and INIRBEN.

Cost of Living payments

Some of the cost of living support schemes which had featured in the 2022 to 2023 survey year continued into 2023 to 2024. For the Warm Home Discount scheme we were able to go beyond the 2022 to 2023 results, and capture income received by those eligible for Core Group 2. This utilised administrative data to accurately capture the households in receipt of this payment, under Core Group 2 eligibility criteria. This has improved the quality of cost of living payment data and the associated income variables. It should be noted that this does not include income from those who are only in receipt of tax credits.

All cost of living payments applied to the FRS data continue to form part of calculated income variables, within the FRS dataset. Where our published tables relate to household or benefit unit income, they will continue to reflect the Cost of Living payments received. Further detail on the methodology applied is explained in section 3.3.

Level of Educational Attainment

This variable had been used since the 2021 to 2022 survey year, to present estimates of household food security status and household food bank usage, by educational attainment of head of household. In the previous 2022 to 2023 year, an issue with the variable EDUCQUAL (formerly DVHIQUAL) was identified. It followed that for 2022 to 2023, two breakdowns were not published (tables 9.5 and 9.16) and also removed from Stat Xplore.

For this year, 2023 to 2024, a correction to the EDUCQUAL variable has been applied. As such these tables have been published, as 9.6 and 9.18, for 2023 to 2024 and are also available from Stat Xplore.

In summary, all relevant records on the FRS dataset now have a valid EDUCQUAL level; there are no ‘skipped’ values (.A); and no inappropriate ‘don’t know’ or ‘refusal’ values (.B and .C), these being output only if the respondent answered either:

• ‘don’t know’ (codes 9 and 99) or ‘refusal’ (code 98) to HIQUAL1 questions; or
• ‘don’t know’ (codes 35 and 99) or ‘refusal’ (code 98) to HIQUAL3 questions.

Corrective work during 2024, together with the ONS, means that EDUCQUAL data for both 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024 is now of the quality needed. Work will continue within 2025 to investigate the possibility of applying further corrections to earlier years, as required.

Use of 2021 Census outputs for grossing

As the full set of inputs based on the 2021 Census (2022 for Scotland), which are required for grossing, were not available in time, the 2023 to 2024 publication is not based on the latest Census. Estimates for the 2023 to 2024 survey year instead have their basis in the 2011 Census, as rolled forward to 2023 by ONS’ mid-year estimates. All FRS based outputs will use these population estimates for 2023 to 2024.

Users are informed in advance of all changes to the FRS publication. Please see the DWP Statistical Work Programme and the FRS Release Strategy for more details.  

1.4 Fieldwork approach for 2023 to 2024

Survey fieldwork operations continued with face-to-face interviewing as the predominant way of completing the survey, as was the case for FRS 2022 to 2023. Interviewers aimed to complete the survey in respondents’ homes as a computer assisted personal interview. 

Where respondents refused the interviewer entry to their home, but they were willing to take part in FRS, interviewers were permitted to conduct the FRS interview by telephone. Telephone interviews have been permitted as a data collection method for FRS since April 2020, initially to accommodate the impact on fieldwork of COVID-19. Whilst telephone interviewing is not the preferred approach for data collection on FRS, it has been permitted during 2023 to 2024 to encourage more households to participate. 

For interviews conducted by ONS and NatCen 13,242 households were interviewed face-to-face (89% of the GB achieved sample) and 1,671 households (11% of the GB achieved sample) interviewed via telephone. The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) increased their proportion of complete interviews that were conducted face-to-face, from 552 households (61%) in the first half of the survey year, to 1,190 households (64%) for the full survey year.

Overall, the method of data collection across the UK was split between 14,432 households interviewed face-to-face (86% of the UK achieved sample) and 2,326 households (14% of the UK achieved sample) interviewed via telephone, resulting in a total achieved sample size of 16,758.

The use of a mixed-mode approach to interviewing helped those who may have been unable to complete a face-to-face interview to still participate in the survey (e.g., larger families with children). This also helps to improve the overall representativeness of the achieved sample.

However, it is not known how many of those who responded by telephone would have responded face-to-face if that was the only available option. Illustrative analysis shows some differences in the types of people interviewed face-to-face or by telephone. For example, there are variations in family type, with pensioner couples more likely to be interviewed face-to-face and working-age couples with children more likely to be interviewed by telephone. As such, the different data collection methods, and the differences in demographics they captured should be considered when interpreting the results.

Response rates have continued to be challenging. A key challenge comes from recruitment and retention of interviewers, alongside increasing rates of respondent refusal. At just under 17,000 households, the achieved sample is smaller than that achieved in 2022 to 2023 (just over 25,000). However, it should be noted that for 2022 to 2023 the issued sample was boosted to 99,000 households. For 2023 to 2024, the issued sample returned to around 59,000, with a target for the achieved sample of 20,000 households, comparable to the years prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

1.5 Questionnaire changes

Changes are routinely made to the FRS questionnaire through an annual consultation process. This is to improve the understanding of respondents’ circumstances, improve data quality through better informed data processing decisions, and to collect information to support future policy analysis.

The questionnaire was otherwise largely unchanged from the previous survey year, with four topics added:

• to identify young adults who were in care when they were children (care leavers).
• to identify whether the respondent had in the past served in the armed forces, that is, who had been either regulars or reserves (ex-armed forces).
• questions for doctors have been clarified, in terms of NHS versus private practice.
• the household food security block has been expanded, with new questions on whether the family is routinely receiving food from any friends, relatives, or other organisation (other than a food bank).

The main FRS publication and the set of FRS tables available from the Department’s Stat Xplore are not altered by these changes.

An important change relating to Material Deprivation questions should be noted.

In December 2021, DWP commissioned a review of FRS material deprivation questions. The review was conducted by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The review recommended a pilot of a short-list of 35 items and activities. Full details of the test questions and changes to methodology are given in section 4 of the published review. 

The 2023 to 2024 period marked a transition for the FRS material deprivation questions. A minority of respondents continued with the old questions, while the majority received the updated suite of questions. This dual approach allowed users to distinguish changes in material deprivation due to the updated questions from broader economic trends.

In collaboration with LSE researchers, DWP aimed for a 25% to 75% split between old and updated questions. These proportions were based on the expected sample size and power calculations, ensuring that differences between the old and updated questions were statistically significant.

Given the target split and the sample sizes of NatCen, ONS, and NISRA, it was logical for NatCen (as the holder of the largest sample) to divide its sample, with half retaining the old questions. ONS and NISRA would move to asking the updated questions only. This meant that no households in Northern Ireland were asked the old questions by NISRA. This decision was operationally sound due to NatCen’s lead on the questionnaire change process, tight deadlines, and their ability easily to split their sample. This approach was jointly agreed upon by DWP, ONS, NatCen, and NISRA.  

The Department has now considered the recommendations from the LSE review and taken four key decisions on the updated material deprivation measures:

a. Defining a lacked item.
b. Approach to counting the number of items lacked.
c. Setting the threshold at which an individual is defined as in Material Deprivation.
d. Presentation of estimates in the March 2025 release.

These decisions were informed by recommendations from the review and evidence from analysis of FRS and HBAI back-series data, FRS 2023 to 2024 survey data and broader conceptual perspectives.

Material deprivation estimates in the March 2025 HBAI publication are based on the updated material deprivation measures. A technical report has also been published alongside the March 2025 HBAI publication, setting out the analysis and decisions underpinning the updated measure. It presents a comparison of 2023 to 2024 estimates based on the old and updated measures. The updated estimates will set a benchmark against future progress for measures that use Material Deprivation.

1.6 FRS transformation: integration of administrative data

We first started asking FRS respondents at the end of the interview for consent to link their survey responses to their administrative records in 2007. This approach was designed to meet the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. On average each year, around two thirds of respondents consented. We successfully matched around 80% of consenting respondents, giving us an overall match rate (for all respondents) of just over 50% on average.     

The implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) data protection policy changes in 2018 has provided an alternative to consent as the legal basis for linking. We can now link all respondents on the basis that the processing is necessary for the department to carry out its functions as a public body (GDPR Article 6(1)(e)). This change, together with improvements in our linking methodology, means that we can now link at least 95% of FRS respondents to their administrative records.

As outlined in the DWP Statistical Work Programme (section 2.4), the department is committed to transforming its surveys through the integration of administrative data. This is in the wider context of the UK Statistics Authority’s Strategy for data linking Joining Up Data for Better Statistics – Office for Statistics Regulation (statisticsauthority.gov.uk) and OSR recommendations in their 2021 review of income-based poverty statistics, that DWP should explore the feasibility and potential of social survey and administrative data integration (Review of Income-based poverty statistics – Office for Statistics Regulation (statisticsauthority.gov.uk)).

A technical report on FRS Transformation work to date, with illustrative results for DWP benefits, and further details of development plans, was published on 21 March 2024.

2 Background Information

The primary objective of the FRS is to provide DWP with information that informs the development, monitoring and evaluation of social welfare policy. Detailed information is collected on respondents’ incomes, including:

• earnings from work including self-employment
• private pensions
• state pensions and state benefits
• other state and local government support

Information is also collected on:

• caring needs and responsibilities
• health and disability
• pension participation
• housing tenure and expenditure
• education
• childcare, family circumstances and child maintenance
• household food security and food bank usage

Each year the questionnaire and data processing are updated to reflect the latest changes in social welfare policy.

2.1 Policy Changes for 2023 to 2024

For further explanation of any of the following terms, please refer to the Glossary at the end of this document.

Council Tax and rates

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (renamed the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in July 2024) estimated that the average Band D Council Tax set by local authorities in England for 2023 to 2024 had increased by 5.1% from 2022 to 2023 levels.

In Wales, the average Band D Council Tax for 2023 to 2024 represented an increase of 5.8% from 2022 to 2023 levels. In Scotland, the average Band D Council Tax for 2023 to 2024 represented an increase of 5% from 2022 to 2023 levels. In Northern Ireland, the rates (poundage) for 2023 to 2024 represented an increase of 6% from 2022 to 2023 levels.

Income Tax 

The annual personal allowance (£12,570) and its related income limit (£100,000) remained the same as in the previous, 2022 to 2023 tax year.

How much Income Tax a person pays in each tax year depends on how much of their income is above their Personal Allowance and how much of their income falls within each tax band. 

The rates for Basic, Higher and Additional income tax were held at their 2022 to 2023 levels in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The band for the Basic rate also remained the same as in 2022 to 2023, although the maximum income values for the Higher rate band decreased from £150,000 to £125,140, meaning that the Additional rate band applied from over £125,140 in 2023 to 2024, whereas it had been from over £150,000 in 2022 to 2023.

Tax rate	Income band for 2022 to 2023	Income band for 2023 to 2024
Basic rate 20% People with the standard Personal Allowance started paying this rate on income over £12,570.	£12,570 to £50,270	£12,570 to £50,270
Higher rate 40% People with the standard Personal Allowance started paying this rate on income over £50,270.	£50,271 to £150,000	£50,271 to £125,140
Additional rate 45% People who earn over this figure do not have a Personal Allowance.	Over £150,000	Over £125,140

In Scotland, the Higher rate, for incomes of £31,093 above the personal allowance was increased from 41% to 42%; the Top rate for incomes in excess of £125,140 (previously £150,000 in 2022 to 2023) was increased from 46% to 47%.

The dividend allowance was reduced from £2,000 in 2022 to 2023, to £1,000 in 2023 to 2024. This measure reduced the tax-free allowance for dividend income, meaning that individuals would be taxed on dividend incomes over £1,000. In 2023 to 2024, the rates of tax paid on dividends remained the same as in 2022 to 2023.

National Insurance Contributions (NICs) 

For employees, the 12% rate for Class 1 NICs decreased by 2 percentage points in January 2024 to 10%.

For the self-employed, the rate for Class 2 NICs increased from £3.15 per week to £3.45 per week from 6 April 2023. The Small Profits Threshold amount remained at £6,725 per year.

For the self-employed, the applicable rates for Class 4 NICs (payable on profits, above set thresholds) decreased: from 9.73% to 9% for the ‘Rate between Lower Profits Limit to the Upper Profits Limit’; and from 2.73% to 2% for the ‘Rate above Upper Profits Limit’.

There was also an increase in the Lower Profits Limit (the floor for these contributions, below which NICs were not payable) which had been £11,908 per year in 2022 to 2023, to £12,570 per year in 2023 to 2024. The Upper Profits Limit remained at £50,270 per year.

National Living Wage  

On 1 April 2023, the National Living Wage increased from £9.50 to £10.42 per hour for employees aged 23 years and above.

Employees aged under 23 years continued to receive the National Minimum Wage. On 1 April 2023, the National Minimum Wage increased:

• from £9.18 to £10.18 per hour for those aged 21 to 22 years inclusive
• from £6.83 to £7.49 per hour for those aged 18 to 20 years inclusive
• from £4.81 to £5.28 per hour for those aged below 18 years (but over compulsory school leaving age)

Additionally, the National Minimum Wage rose from £4.81 to £5.28 per hour for apprentices, both those aged below 19 years and those aged 19 years and above who were in the first year of their apprenticeship. 

Uprating of benefit amounts

In April 2023: 

• inflation-linked benefits and tax credits rose by 10.1% in line with the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), as of September 2022.
• the Basic State Pension and New State Pension increased by 10.1%. This was in line with CPI inflation, following the ‘triple lock’ policy. The ‘triple lock’ ensured that the Basic and New State Pension increased by the highest of the increase in earnings, price inflation as measured by the CPI, or 2.5%. The Basic State Pension increased from £141.85 per week in 2022 to 2023 to £156.20 per week in 2023 to 2024, a cash increase of £14.35 per week. The New State Pension increased from £185.15 per week in 2022 to 2023 to £203.85 per week in 2023 to 2024, a cash increase of £18.70 per week.
• the Standard Minimum Guarantee in Pension Credit increased by 10.1%. For those who were single, this increased from £182.60 per week in 2022 to 2023 to £201.05 per week in 2023 to 2024, a cash increase of £18.45 per week. For couples, this increased from £278.70 per week in 2022 to 2023 to £306.85 per week in 2023 to 2024, a cash increase of £28.15 per week.
• both the lower and higher Universal Credit Work Allowances rose broadly in line with CPI inflation. The lower rate increased by 10.2% to £379 per month in 2023 to 2024, and the higher rate increased by 10.1% to £631 per month in 2023 to 2024.

Household Support Fund 

The Household Support Fund has been running since 6 October 2021, with the latest iteration, HSF4, running for a year from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 with £1bn of funding, including funding from the Barnett formula to the devolved administrations. The aim of the HSF is to support vulnerable households across England most in need by helping them to meet their daily needs such as food, clothing, energy, and other essential living needs.  

Warm Home Discount

Between October 2023 and March 2024, eligible households began to receive a one-off discount on their energy bills under the Warm Home Discount scheme. The rebate was set at £150. It was automatically discounted from energy bills for households in England and Wales who were eligible if they were either in receipt of the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit or were on a low income and had high energy costs.

In Scotland, households were eligible if they were either in receipt of the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit or were on a low income and met their energy supplier’s criteria for the scheme. The discount was not automatic; an application to the energy supplier was required. The scheme was not available in Northern Ireland.

Cost of Living Payments

Eligible households on income-related benefits, including Universal Credit, Pension Credit and Tax Credits, received payments to help with the cost of living in 2023 to 2024, through three different schemes. These payments were generally made automatically between 25 April 2023 and 22 February 2024, although mop-up payments were paid to some claimants not covered by the automatic runs e.g. where they had made a claim but were not yet in payment on the eligibility date. Households may have received the following payments, depending on their circumstances on specific dates or during a particular period:

• an income-related benefit Cost of Living Payment for households on a qualifying low-income benefit or tax credits. A payment of £900 was paid in 3 lump sums of £301, £300 and £299, in the spring, autumn and winter respectively, to households already in receipt of the eligible benefits. This payment was made on top of any benefit payments received by the claimants
• a Disability Cost of Living Payment for households on a qualifying disability benefit. A lump sum payment of £150 was paid automatically between 20 June 2023 and 4 July 2023, to those already in receipt of the eligible benefits. To be eligible for the payment, households must have received a payment (or later receive a payment) of one of the qualifying benefits before 1 April 2023
• a Pensioner Cost of Living Payment for households entitled to a Winter Fuel Payment for winter 2023 to 2024. An extra £150 or £300 was paid with the eligible household’s normal Winter Fuel Payment from November 2023. This was in addition to any other Cost of Living Payment received

2.2 Relevance

DWP uses: the Policy Simulation Model and other policy analysis

The FRS is used extensively within DWP. It underpins the Policy Simulation Model (PSM) which is used for the development and costing of policy options. FRS responses are uprated to current prices, benefits and earnings levels and can be calibrated to the DWP Departmental Report forecasts of benefit caseload. Using FRS data has made it possible to model some aspects of the benefit system that could not be achieved previously, an example being allowances for childcare costs. In addition to FRS data being used in formal modelling, this data plays a vital role in analysis of patterns of benefit receipt for policy monitoring and evaluation, and benefit forecasting.

The FRS remains the basis for several other accredited official statistics, and official statistics; these are outlined below.

Other DWP publications

Households Below Average Income (HBAI)

This publication uses household disposable incomes, adjusted for household size and composition, as a proxy for material living standards (or, more precisely, for the level of consumption of goods and services that people could attain given the disposable income of the household in which they live). This publication is available from https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/households-below-average-income-hbai–2

Pensioners’ Incomes Statistics

The FRS and HBAI datasets are used in the Pensioners’ Incomes Statistics, which are DWP’s analysis of trends in components and levels of pensioners’ incomes. This report is available from https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/pensioners-incomes-series-statistics–3

Income-Related Benefits: Estimates of Take-Up

The FRS provides information about individual circumstances, which is used to estimate numbers of people who are not claiming benefits to which they may be entitled. The statistics are based on a combination of survey and also administrative data. This report is available from https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up–2

Separated Families Statistics

Official statistics relating to separated families and their child maintenance arrangements. This report is available from  https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/separated-families-population-statistics#latest-release

Below Average Resources

DWP are developing a new, separate poverty measure named ‘Below Average Resources’ (BAR) based on the approach proposed by the Social Metrics Commission (SMC) and using FRS data.

The OSR’s Review of Income-Based Poverty Statistics recommended that DWP assess how the SMC’s proposals can be implemented to enhance the public value of our statistics. The OSR recognised that a basket of main poverty measures is required to meet varying user needs, but that signposting and coherence between different statistics could be improved to help users navigate the different measures.

Once fully developed, the BAR measure will sit alongside and add value to DWP’s existing poverty related statistics. The BAR approach provides a more expansive view of available resources, including savings and inescapable costs alike, than the income measurement adopted under HBAI. Additionally, BAR will also include some methodological changes proposed by the SMC.

The latest Official Statistics in Development publication in the BAR series was published in January 2025. This new publication includes data for the financial year ending 2023 but does not include any substantial changes to the measure compared to the initial publication.

DWP sought user feedback on the new measure through an analytical consultation running from 18 January to 11 April 2024. The consultation response has now been published.

Other government department uses

The FRS contains information used by other government departments, particularly for tax and benefit policy analysis by His Majesty’s Treasury and His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Other users include the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Education and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

The Office for National Statistics produces (model-based) small area income estimates. These are the official estimates of annual household income at the middle layer super output area (MSOA) level in England and Wales. The estimates are produced using a combination of survey data from the FRS and Census data, plus several administrative data sources.

The Cabinet Office Race Equality Unit has published a series of summaries of data, on their ‘Ethnicity Facts and Figures’ website since June 2019. Ethnicity Facts and Figures provides information about the different experiences of people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. It gathers data collected by different government departments in one place, making it available to the public, specialists and charities. The FRS contributes data on state support, meaning receipt by ethnicity and type of benefit.

The FRS household food security data was used as a UK indicator of Sustainable Development Goals, from 2019 to 2020 until 2021 to 2022. This data relates to Indicator 2.1.2 – ‘Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population’, based on the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES). For more information see: https://sdgdata.gov.uk/2-1-2/, but note that uploading of data to this site has been paused since September 2023.

In Northern Ireland, the Department for Communities uses the FRS to produce similar reports to those from DWP, which are focused on Northern Ireland. For more information see: https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/family-resources-survey and https://www.communities-ni.gov.uk/topics/dsd-statistics-and-research/family-resources-survey

In-depth analysis of FRS-based HBAI data for Scotland can be found in the Scottish Government report on Poverty and income inequality statistics in Scotland.

In-depth analysis of relative income poverty in Wales, based on HBAI data, can be found on the Relative income poverty page of the Welsh Government website, which also has links to material deprivation analysis.

The academic and research community

The FRS is used extensively by academics and research institutes. The FRS team within DWP engages with users in the following ways:

• Data and publication Quality Assurance Groups
• Expert Advisory Group consultations
• The annual Family Finance Survey Users conference, run in association with ONS and the United Kingdom Data Service (UKDS).
• Responses to Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information requests
• team.frs@dwp.gov.uk for general enquiries

2.3 Accessibility and Clarity

Accessibility

We have further reviewed our publication tables and supporting guidance to ensure accessibility to users. For compliance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018, some formatting in the ODS tables, such as merged cells, have been avoided. For more information, please see the accessibility statement specific to DWP’s statistical releases: Accessibility statement for DWP statistics

Other measures to improve accessibility include the FRS report and ‘Background Information and Methodology’ now being released in HTML format. FRS tables are released as both Excel and ODS tables.

Clarity

In both the technical advice provided alongside the publication, and in the supporting documentation, including the FRS Quality Assessment Report the following is supplied:

• clarity on the strengths and limitations of the data
• clarity on the appropriate uses and quality of the statistics and data
• transparency in how this may differ from past years

For example, a Technical User Guide for the FRS detailing the assessment of the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the FRS statistics, is available on the UKDS to support microdata users.

• a guidance page, within each published data table, offers further help in interpreting the estimates
• a glossary of key terms, to aid interpretation, can be found at the end of this document

For more detail on coherence and comparability of the FRS themes, see section 9.

2.4 Documentation

See section 3 for how to access the FRS dataset. The documentation list available from the UK Data Service and ONS Secure Research Service contains the following metadata:

• Variable Listing
• Variable Metadata
• Derived Variable Summary
• Fixed Rate Constants
• Variable Rate Constants
• Documentation of Changes to FRS Dataset
• Benefits documentation
• Questionnaire (GB and NI)
• Guide to [questionnaire] changes (GB and NI)
• Interviewer pocket guide
• [Questionnaire] Showcards (GB and NI)
• Future [questionnaire] changes summary

2.5 Timeliness and Punctuality

In terms of timeliness, data relating to any given financial year are released at the end of the following financial year (March). FRS data is used for producing HBAI, which is used for three of the four income-related measures in the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. The Welfare Reform and Work Act requires the measures included in HBAI to be published by the end of the financial year. Prior to this, the FRS was regularly published in June.

In terms of punctuality, data have been released as planned in the release calendar. Each year since 2017, this has been in March. For more information on the trade-offs between timeliness and quality, see the Trade-offs in section 11 of this document.

2.6 Confidentiality, Security, Transparency 

Treatment of respondent’s personal information:

Respondents to the FRS questionnaire are provided with the FRS Privacy Notice and further guidance on how their data will be handled:

Family Resources Survey: information for people taking part - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Prior to publication: Data handling and access control

Data is held securely. Access is only given to analysts who have completed internal data access and security training and who have a business need to access it. Business need is defined in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics T3.3 and T3.4: access to statistics before their public release is limited to those involved in the production of the statistics and the preparation of the release, and for quality assurance and operational purposes. Analysis of data, either in tabular or chart form is given to a group of subject matter experts for quality assurance purposes.

Several controls are applied to this access. Each person is required to submit a declaration, prior to being granted access to the analysis and a record of these is maintained.

Anyone with access prior to publication is made aware of their role and the need to prevent any disclosure, which includes any indication of the statistics or messages they convey. Access is restricted to named individuals within teams, who are restricted from discussing the statistics with their colleagues during that access period.

Post-publication: Limitation of the risk of disclosure of identities of data subjects

There are two types of FRS dataset made available for download via the UKDS:

End User Licence (years 1994-95 – Present)

The End User Licence (EUL) version is a non-disclosive dataset. Following advice from the Statistical Disclosure Control team at ONS, several variables are treated (rounded, top-coded or removed) to ensure that the risk of identification of individuals is minimised. The list of variables which have been treated has changed over time, in line with changes to the questionnaire, and following improvements in disclosure control best practice. Note that the anonymisation process applied to the dataset means that EUL users may not be able to exactly replicate published estimates.

Secure Access Files (years 2009-10 – Present)

The Secure Access File was made available in 2012. This version contains several additional variables compared with the EUL copy and unlike EUL, no other treatment procedures are applied. The purpose of this file is to allow academics, analysts and researchers to carry out even more detailed analysis.

It can only be accessed using the UKDS ‘Safe Room’. Any user wishing to access this version of the dataset must register with UKDS as an accredited researcher, then submit an application for use.

The copy of the FRS deposited at ONS’ Secure Research Service is the same as the Secure Access File.

3 Statistical Presentation

3.1 Overview of dissemination process

The FRS statistical release includes a report, which is divided into topic-specific chapters, accompanied by several excel and ODS detailed tables. These present a wide range of statistics from the FRS dataset. The tables are referenced throughout the report. Additionally, users can generate their own statistical outputs and tables by using the department’s Stat-Xplore online tool, which is an open-source online platform for users to manipulate FRS data themselves. This platform includes a wide range of variables from more than twenty years of the FRS.

Researchers and analysts outside government can also access the FRS dataset via:

• The UK Data Service https://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/series/?sn=200017, and on application for the Secure Access File version of the dataset
• The ONS Secure Research Service, on application

3.2 Data Description

The FRS dataset is a relational database, with all tables using household (by the unique identifier, referred in the FRS data as the ‘sernum’). Data is organised within different tables, with different key variables as appropriate to the subject of the table. For example, family (benefit unit), individual (person), or household, plus others if appropriate. An explanation of this is provided to users in a full listing of Tables and Variables.

3.3 Statistical Concepts and Definitions

Beyond the FRS, a guide to the different definitions of earnings and income, with information on alternative sources of data, is available. There is also a guide to contrasting income and earnings statistics, describing the source data, output data and availability, the concept being measured, its main strengths, limitations and uses.

Definitions of groups used for analysis and presentation

Results in the FRS publication, depending on the context, are presented at either household level, family (benefit unit) level, or individual level.

Household level definition

One person living alone, or a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address, who share cooking facilities and share a living room, sitting room or dining area. A household will consist of one or more families or benefit units.

Family or benefit unit level definition

A single adult, or a couple living as married, and any dependent children.

Cost of Living Support Schemes 2023 to 2024: FRS methodology

During the 2022 to 2023 survey year, multiple schemes to support households with the increased cost of living were introduced. Most were introduced at pace, and in a timeframe which made it difficult to adapt the questionnaire in the field to capture them. Therefore the FRS did not attempt to collect data by including direct questions to survey respondents. Instead, eligibility was modelled, and amounts applied post-interview to the dataset. For those schemes which were continued into survey year 2023 to 2024, the same methodology was applied.

As the support schemes have clear eligibility guidelines it was possible, with advice from policy experts, to model eligibility based on the respondents’ characteristics. To align treatment of the cost of living scheme payments on the FRS with the rest of the survey methodology, interview dates and benefit receipt were chosen as the basis for payment eligibility. Treatment of income from the different support scheme payments are outlined below:

Cost of Living Payment for households on a qualifying low-income benefit or tax credits

Payments were assigned to respondents reporting receipt of a qualifying benefit at the time of interview and who were interviewed during the window when payments were made. Therefore, despite there being three payment dates during the year, respondents were assigned the payment that occurred just before their interview, so there are no respondents in receipt of more than one payment on the FRS.

Awarded at a benefit unit level and added to the FRS Income Variables ‘Total Adult Gross Other Benefits’ (INOTHBEN) and ‘Total Gross Income Related Benefits’ (INIRBEN) accordingly.

Disability Cost of Living Payment

This payment has been assigned to all respondents with a disability related benefit on the survey dataset, and who were interviewed from 20 June onwards. Eligibility criteria restricted payments to one awarding body only. For example, being in receipt of a qualifying benefit from the Ministry of Defence and a qualifying benefit from DWP, would only entitle someone to a payment from DWP. For the FRS to model this income effectively, Disability Cost of Living Payment was not awarded to respondents in receipt of only Armed Forces Compensation Scheme (AFCS) or War Widow(er)s Pension (WWP).

Awarded at an individual level and added to the FRS Income Variables ‘Total Adult Disability Benefits’ (INDISBEN) and ‘Total Gross non-Income Related Benefits’ (INNIRBEN).

Pensioner Cost of Living Payment

On the FRS, Winter Fuel Payment eligibility was used to award this payment. Where a Winter Fuel Payment recipient met the criteria specified in the Pensioner Cost of Living Payment eligibility guide, a £150 or £300 Pensioner Cost of Living Payment has been assigned.

Awarded at an individual level and added to the FRS Income Variables ‘Total Adult Gross Other Benefits’ (INOTHBEN) and ‘Total Gross non-Income Related Benefits’ (INNIRBEN).

Warm Home Discount 

Warm Hone Discount has been assigned to households interviewed between October 2023 and March 2024 where they met the eligibility criteria relating to a person in receipt of the Guarantee Credit element of Pension Credit, known as Core Group 1.

From 2023 to 2024, we have also been able to use administrative data to assign this benefit to an additional number of households (not including tax-credit only households) in Core Group 2. Administrative data is used because we are not able to model these from FRS data, as we do not collect details such as the energy supplier and the energy-cost characteristics of the property.

Awarded at a household level and therefore added to the FRS Income Variables ‘Total Household Gross Other Benefits’ (HHOTHBEN) and ‘Total Household Income’ (HHINC).

All cost of living support scheme payments appear on the FRS dataset as lump sums. When added to derived income variables, amounts have been weeklyised as appropriate, dependent upon the timing of the payment date and the assumption that the benefit was intended to cover the period until the next payment of the same kind was made to the recipient. This aligns with FRS treatment of incomes received from other sources.

For further details on the methodology of how Cost of Living support payments have been applied to the FRS data, please contact the team.frs@dwp.gov.uk. A technical paper is also available from the UK Data Service or the ONS Secure Research Service.

4 Source data

4.1 Overview of sample

The FRS is designed to be representative of all private households in the United Kingdom. Private households are defined as those that are not communal settings, such that students in halls of residence, residents of nursing homes, individuals living in military barracks, those in prison and those living temporarily in bed and breakfast accommodation are excluded.

ONS and the National Centre for Social Research conducted Great Britain fieldwork on behalf of DWP. Fieldwork in Northern Ireland was conducted by NISRA.

The sampling frame and sample design, and how these differ between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, are explained in detail in the FRS Quality Assessment Report

Great Britain

The Great Britain sample is drawn from the Royal Mail’s small users Postcode Address File (PAF). Addresses are then sampled from Primary Sampling Units (PSU). Each PSU consisted of 500 or more addresses in the same postcode sector (i.e. the first five digits of a postcode). 28 addresses were drawn from each PSU, which were then assigned to field interviewers for them to contact.

Whereas the issued sample had been boosted in 2022 to 2023, to over 95,000 addresses, this did not apply to 2023 to 2024. As a result, the 2023 to 2024 survey was carried out with an issued sample size of 54,964 addresses. This sample retained the element of boosting the sample in Wales and Scotland, relative to England, at a rate which was broadly double the rate of sample in England. This resulted in a larger GB issued sample than in 2020 to 2021 when it was 39,676 addresses.

Each address in GB had approximately a 1-in-529 chance of being included in the survey. For England each address had approximately a 1-in-569 chance of inclusion in the survey. In Wales each address had approximately a 2-in-663 chance of inclusion in the survey. In Scotland each address had approximately a 1-in-399 chance of inclusion in the survey.

Northern Ireland

The Northern Ireland sample is drawn from the NISRA Address Register. The sample size and sample approach were the same as in the previous survey year. A systematic random sample of 4,080 addresses were selected for the 2023 to 2024 survey. Each address had approximately a 1-in-176 chance of being selected.

4.2 The FRS Questionnaire

In 2023 to 2024 the FRS questionnaire continued to be coded as a Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) version, with an alternative version for Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) also available.

The questionnaire is divided into three parts.

• The first part is the household schedule which is addressed to one person in the household (usually the household reference person, although other members are encouraged to be present) and mainly asks household-level information, such as relationships of inhabitants to one another, and tenure and housing costs.

• Next is the benefit unit (family) schedule which is addressed to each adult in turn. It asks questions about income from work and earnings, pensions, state benefits, investments, and any other income. Questions on household food security and material deprivation are also asked. Information on children is collected by proxy from a responsible adult.

• A final section asks about respondents’ different accounts, any debts, and their savings and investments.

Information on how the questionnaire is reviewed and updated each year is given in the accompanying FRS Quality Assessment Report.

Administrative data

DWP makes use of its own administrative data on state benefits, to support the survey responses on state benefit receipt. Such data has been used for several years to correct or edit responses, where respondents have said they claim a state benefit. This includes the use of Universal Credit data to improve all such responses.

Further information is available in the FRS Quality Assessment Report.

4.3 Data Collection

As noted in earlier sections, fieldwork operations for FRS 2023 to 2024 continued to use face-to-face interviewing as the preferred method of data collection for the duration of the year. Telephone interviewing was retained for a minority of interviews, when this was a clear household preference.

Further information on the standard approach to FRS data collection, in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is available in the FRS Quality Assessment Report.

4.4 Response

Proxy interviews were accepted when a household member was unavailable for interview. In 2023 to 2024, for those households classed as fully co-operating, meaning a full interview (or set of interviews where there are multiple residents) was achieved, proxy responses were obtained for 25% of adults. This is the same proxy rate as in 2022 to 2023.

It should be noted that all data shown in the main body of this publication refer only to fully co-operating households.

Methodology Table M_1 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/family-resources-survey-financial-year-2023-to-2024 summarises household response.

The UK-wide sample chosen for 2023 to 2024 consisted of 59,044 households. Response rates are calculated as a percentage of the “issued sample who were eligible to take part”. There were 5,914 addresses that were classified as ineligible, resulting in a final eligible sample of 53,130 addresses.

In total 16,758 households fully co-operated. Every year some households are removed during DWP quality assurance processes. As such, the final useable dataset for 2023 to 2024 was 16,754.

The overall response rate for the FRS, as a percentage of the issued sample who were eligible to take part, was 32%. This was higher than in 2022 to 2023 (28%).

For clarity, response rates are calculated using the formula below:

Response rate = fully cooperating households ÷ all eligible households x100

A further 537 households partially co-operated (one percent of the sample). A total of 23,955 households across the UK refused to proceed with the interview (45%). These were residents who either refused when contacting the office, when contacted by the interviewer, or were away during the fieldwork period. Assigned interviewers were unable to contact 6,393 households (12%), which is a decrease from 2022 to 2023 when it was 14%.

Methodology Table M_2 shows response rates broken down by region. Response rates in all but one of the regions saw an increase between 2022 to 2023 and 2023 to 2024, with the North West remaining at the same level as the previous year. The North East, Yorkshire and Humberside (a six-percentage point increase since last year), and the South West had the highest response rates in England, with 35% of households responding fully. London and the West Midlands had the lowest, with 25% of the eligible households responding fully. However, response rates in London have increased by seven percentage points since 2022 to 2023, which is encouraging.

Refusals and Non-response

When sampled households in Great Britain refuse to participate in the FRS, interviewers record their reasons why.

Households can give up to three reasons for refusal, so percentages do not sum to 100%. Some households do not give a reason. If a reason does not align with an existing category, it is recorded as ‘Other’. In scenarios where contact cannot be made with a respondent, these are recorded as instances of non-contact rather than refusals.

The most common reasons for refusal in 2023 to 2024 are shown below. The percentage shown is of households where a resident gave a reason for refusal.

Reasons for refusal to participate in the FRS, Great Britain, 2023 to 2024

Reason for refusal	Percentage of households
Can’t be bothered	32
Genuinely too busy	20
Doesn’t believe in surveys	15
Invasion of privacy	15
Concerns about confidentiality	9
Disliked survey of income	7
Personal problems	7
Anti-government	5
Other	4
Temporarily too busy	4
Survey too long	3
About to go away	1
Bad experience with previous surveys	1
Language difficulties	1
Total number who gave a reason for refusal	14,375
Total number of refusals	18,301

4.5 Length of interview

The length of each fully co-operating interview is recorded by the questionnaire program. In 2023 to 2024 the median interview length for the United Kingdom was 62.5 minutes, but the time varied according to the size of household and its circumstances. This is the first year that we have been able to report interview times on a UK basis. The median interview length for Great Britain was 62.0 minutes.

The distribution of interview lengths in the United Kingdom is shown below, with full data including the separate distribution for Great Britain, in Methodology Table M_7. The timings exclude interviewer time spent preparing for and completing administration tasks after the interview.

The timings are based on completed audit data from 16,530 fully productive ONS, NatCen and NISRA interviews. This excludes outliers with timings outside of three standard deviations from the mean. Unfortunately, it was not possible to collect timings from 70 interviews due to technical issues with the audit files.

Distribution of FRS interview lengths, 2023 to 2024, United Kingdom

4.6 Respondent burden

The Code of Practice for Statistics states that producers of statistics should consider the burden on survey respondents. The FRS can measure the burden placed on respondents by using measured interview times for 16,530 full interviews, in the United Kingdom. Respondent burden in the United Kingdom is calculated as follows:

Number of responses  x  median interview time

The median interview time for these 16,530 interviews was 62.5 minutes. Therefore, the respondent burden for the FRS in 2023 to 2024 was roughly 717 days. For Great Britain interviews the median interview length was 62.0 minutes, for 14,788 interviews, so the respondent burden was roughly 637 days.

In comparison, the median interview time for the 17,128 Great Britain interviews for the FRS in 2019 to 2020 (the last time that the FRS was fully face-to-face interviews) was 52.2 minutes. The respondent burden was therefore 621 days. Interview times were not collected in Northern Ireland prior to 2023 to 2024.

The additional time reflects the information now gathered on Household Food Security, Food Banks, Debt and Material Deprivation.

With respect to V5.5 of the Code of Practice for Statistics one of the aims of the Questionnaire Consultation process is to reduce the burden on those providing their information, and on those involved in collecting, recording and supplying data. The value gained from the questions asked is judged to be proportionate due to the benefits arising from the use of FRS statistics.

5 Data validation and processing

For details of validation conducted at interview and during pre-processing, please refer to the accompanying FRS Quality Assessment Report.

5.1 Imputation

The responses to some questions are much more likely to have missing values than others. Areas where missing values are a problem are typically income values, such as employee earnings, income from self employment and income from investments. This is because these values are required in the calculation of derived variables, used for reporting income.

For example, “whether investment interest is before or after tax” is typically the most imputed value. For this question in 2023 to 2024, 64% of final values were imputed. Methodology Table M_5 illustrates the extent of imputation for the most imputed values.

The FRS employs three general-purpose imputation methods.  A brief overview is given here and further detail is provided in the accompanying Quality Assessment Report.

• Bulk Edits – converting in bulk a batch of cases with missing values that satisfy a particular characteristic to an identical value
• Hot Decks – this is the main form of imputation used for the FRS. It involves matching the households with missing data (‘targets’) to very similar households without missing data (‘donors’) and using the information in the matched households to replace the missing data
• Algorithms – a process in which the missing value for a particular case can be predicted, by looking at other relevant characteristics and applying a pre-determined set of rules

In general, results in the tables provided in this release include imputed values. Elsewhere however, values are left to remain as missing in some variables.

Methodology Table M_4 illustrates the extent of missing values and the level at which each of the imputation methods is applied, including how many are left as missing.

As shown in Table M_4a, of the 10.2 million set values in the 2023 to 2024 FRS dataset, (excluding material deprivation questions), one per cent were originally recorded as either ‘don’t know’ or ‘refused’. Out of 113,853 missing values, approximately 87% were then imputed. This is marginally lower than last year, when 90% were imputed.

For 2023 to 2024, because the questionnaire contained updated material deprivation questions for a set proportion of households only, the variable, ‘MDIMP’ has been created to help identify whether an individual in a benefit unit was asked the old or updated questions and how records for the updated questions have been imputed:

1. Asked updated material deprivation questions - no imputation for updated questions.
2. Asked updated material deprivation questions - partial imputation for updated questions.
3. Not asked old or updated material deprivation questions – full imputation for updated questions.
4. Asked old material deprivation questions – full imputation for updated questions.

Users can isolate to just households asked the old questions by using ‘where MDIMP=4’ in analysis.

For those 25% of households asked the old material deprivation questions imputation was applied for all updated questions. This resulted in an unusually high amount of imputation for 2023 to 2024. Therefore, separate M_4 tables have been created to reflect the extent of imputation for all questions (M_4b) and with material deprivation questions excluded (M_4a).

When the block of updated material deprivation questions is also considered (M_4b), four percent of values were originally recorded as ‘don’t know’ or ‘refused’. Out of 388,618 total missing values, approximately 96% were then imputed.

Note that for survey year 2024 to 2025, only the updated material deprivation questions will be included. The imputation processes used for the updated questions will continue to ensure all variables for all questions are fully populated for analysis.

More detail about the extent of imputation of material deprivation variables is provided in the Imputation section of Technical report: update to measures using material deprivation for households below average income FYE 2024.

Each year the components of the imputation processes are checked for changes in the underlying variable list. The methodology applied to the imputation of specific income streams is also reviewed, as part of our ongoing methodological development, to ensure that it reflects real-world changes.

In 2023 to 2024 we have reviewed the methodology for imputing Scottish Child Payment.

Imputation of Scottish Child Payment

To be eligible to claim SCP, a benefit unit must be in Scotland, have children aged under 16, and be in receipt of an income-related benefit. The total number of children reported in FRS data for those aged 0-5 and 6-15 years old is weighted to population levels. Taking published take-up rates from Scottish Government, we have then calculated how many children in each group should be covered by SCP claims.

The imputation has two stages. The first stage imputes SCP in benefit units with at least one child 0-5 years old. SCP is randomly assigned to eligible benefit units until the grossed target caseload for this age group (reported plus imputed cases) is achieved. The second stage imputes additional SCP in benefit units with only children aged 6-15. As in the previous step, SCP is randomly assigned to eligible benefit units until the grossed target caseload for children aged 6-15 (reported plus cases imputed in either stage) is achieved.

Any imputed SCP claim is assumed to cover all children under the age of 16 within the benefit unit. Therefore, payments for children aged 6-15 could be imputed in the first stage where the benefit unit also includes children 0-5 years old. The second stage thus begins with payments already imputed for some 6-15 year-olds.

6 Grossing

The FRS publication presents tabulations where the percentages refer to sample estimates which have been grossed-up to apply to the whole population.

Grossing-up is the term given to the process of applying factors to sample data so that they yield estimates for the overall population. The simplest grossing system would be a single factor e.g. the number of households in the population divided by the number in the achieved sample. However, surveys are normally grossed by a more complex set of grossing factors that attempt to correct for differential non-response, at the same time as they scale up sample estimates.

The population estimates for different groups, chosen with the aims of DWP analysis in mind, are obtained from official data sources to provide control totals. The grossing factors are then calculated so that the FRS produces population estimates that are as close as possible to the control totals. As an example, a grossed FRS count of the number of men aged 35-39 would be consistent with the ONS population estimate of the same group who live in private households.

In developing the grossing regime, careful consideration has been given to the combination of control totals, and the way age ranges, Council Tax bands and so on, are grouped together. The aim has been to strike a balance so that the grossing system will provide, where possible, accurate estimates in different dimensions without significantly increasing variances.

Some adjustments are made to the original control total sources, so that definitions match those in the FRS. For example, an adjustment is made to the demographic data to exclude people whose residence is not a private household. It is also the case that some control totals must be adjusted to correspond to the FRS survey year which runs from April to March.

A software package called CALMAR, provided by the French National Statistics Institute, is used to reconcile control variables at different levels and estimate their joint population. This software makes the final weighted sample distributions match the population distributions through a process known as calibration weighting. It should be noted that if a few cases are associated with very small or very large grossing factors, grossed estimates will have relatively wide confidence intervals.

The full set of inputs based on the 2021 Census (2022 for Scotland), which are required for the grossing factors, were not available in time to apply to this release. For this reason, estimates for the 2023 to 2024 survey year have their basis in the 2011 Census, as rolled forward to 2023 by the ONS mid-year estimates. All FRS based outputs use these population estimates for 2023 to 2024. Full details of our plans to use 2021 Census outputs for the production of FRS grossing factors can be found in the FRS Release Strategy.

The mid-year estimates cover the usual resident population and were adjusted to reflect the population living in private households and covered by the FRS sample. This was achieved by deflating the usually resident population using data from the 2011 Census on the proportion of the usually resident (by local authority, age and sex) population, who live in private households.

Both Great Britain and Northern Ireland data use the same CALMAR software to reconcile control variables at different levels and estimate their joint population. There are minor differences between the methods used to gross the Northern Ireland sample as compared with the Great Britain sample:

• Local taxes in Northern Ireland are collected through the rates system, so Council Tax band is not applicable as a control variable.
• Northern Ireland housing data is based largely on small-sample surveys. It is not desirable to introduce the variance of one survey into another by using it to compute control totals; therefore tenure type is not used as a control variable.

Details of the control variables used in the grossing methodology for Great Britain and Northern Ireland are shown below.

Grossing regime for Great Britain 2023 to 2024

Control variables used to generate grossing factors for private households

Variable	Groupings	Source of data
Individuals (age, sex and Region)	Male children: 0-9, 10-19 Male adults: 16-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-59, 60-64, 65-74, 75-79, 80+ Female children: 0-9, 10-19 Female adults: 16-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80+ Each grouping is further broken down by region: North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East, London, South East, South West, Scotland and Wales	ONS
Benefit units (with children)	England and Wales (combined), Scotland	DWP estimates using ONS population and HMRC Child Benefit data
Benefit units (with children)	Lone parents: Male, female	DWP estimates derived from the Labour Force Survey
Households (Tenure type)	Local Authority or Housing Association renters, private renters, owner occupiers	Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG), Welsh Government, Scottish Government
Households (Council Tax band)	Not Valued Separately and A, B, C-D, E-H (and band I in Wales only)	Valuation Office Agency, Scottish Government
Households (Region)	North East, North West, Yorkshire and the Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, East, London, South East, South West, Scotland and Wales	ONS (England) Welsh Government (Wales) Scottish Government (Scotland)

Grossing regime for Northern Ireland, 2023 to 2024

Control variables used to generate grossing factors for private households

Variable	Groupings	Source of data
Individuals (age and sex)	Male children:0-19 Male adults: 16-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-59, 60-64, 65-74, 75-79, 80+ Female children:0-19 Female adults: 16-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80+	Office for National Statistics (ONS)
Lone parents	Lone parents in NI	Department for Communities Northern Ireland (DfCNI)
Households		Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA)

Comparisons are made between the achieved sample of FRS responses in Great Britain, and administrative data on the number of households within each Council Tax band. This is given in Methodology Table M_3, which demonstrates the part that grossing plays in achieving a representative sample.

For example, in 2023 to 2024 the achieved (ungrossed) FRS sample for England has a smaller proportion of households in the lower Council Tax band A than the administrative data, and a higher proportion of households in Council Tax bands D, E and F than the administrative data. After grossing the proportions in Bands E and F are the same in both sources and the difference in Band A is reduced.

7 Quality Management

In 2023 to 2024 the FRS introduced a separate quality document to provide a complete assessment of the quality of the FRS data journey.

Information about Quality Management of FRS data from collection and processing through to analysis and dissemination can be found in the accompanying FRS Quality Assessment Report. Details are provided on the following areas of quality management that users would previously have found in this Background Information and Methodology document:

• sample design
• questionnaire design
• pre-fieldwork development
• the role of external assessors in the QA Group and the Expert Advisory group

8 Accuracy and reliability

8.1 FRS Interface

The HTML-led data management solution (FRESCO), introduced for the processing of data in 2022 to 2023, has continued to be used for the 2023 to 2024 survey year and is expected to be the adopted processing interface for the foreseeable future.

8.2 Document consultation

Interviewers encourage respondents to consult documentation at all stages of the interview to ensure that the answers provided are as accurate as possible. For some items, whether certain documents are consulted or not is recorded on the questionnaire. This assists FRS users in assessing the accuracy of the data.

Given the continuation of a mixed-mode approach to interviews this year, the consultation rates reported below may be less reliable than for a fully face-to-face interview survey year, as the interviewer cannot observe directly whether documents are being checked during a telephone interview (14% of UK interviews).

Information is collected by interviewers on the following elements of document consultation:

• Employees have consulted their latest payslip for 39% of jobs they have reported. Of all employees, 93% reported having one job only and seven per cent reported having more than one job
• Employees did not have a payslip to consult for five per cent of jobs they reported; 27% could not consult a payslip because their payslips were only received electronically
• Sixty-seven per cent of all reported benefit and payable Tax Credit receipt involved consultation of documentation (that is, a letter from DWP or HM Revenue and Customs, or a bank statement)
• Sixty-three per cent of households in Great Britain consulted a Council Tax bill or statement in answering questions on their Council Tax payments

8.3 Comparisons of survey and administrative data

Several comparisons of FRS and administrative data are available. See Methodology tables M_6a and M_6b and M_8, for a summary of how FRS benefit caseloads and amounts compare with DWP administrative data. 

The production of M_6 table also acts as quality assurance check of our benefits data. For example, this year we were able to identify that we had a significant undercount of households in receipt of Pension Credit (PC). Using the eligibility criteria sourced from survey data, combined with administrative data we were able to randomly assign PC cases to households who had not reported PC at the time of interview, but who were eligible. This made the dataset more consistent, in terms of percentage undercount, with previous FRS years. The resultant undercount was 29%, compared to 27% in 2022 to 2023.

• Methodology Table M_6a This compares the grossed number of benefit recipients in the FRS 2023 to 2024 data, with the total caseload on benefit from administrative data sources. For all benefits (except Income Support and Disability Living Allowance), the FRS numbers in receipt are below those seen in administrative data. The difference varies by benefit.

• Methodology Table M_6b This compares the average weekly receipt of state support in the FRS 2023 to 2024 data, with average receipt from administrative data sources. Some benefit types have not been included in this analysis because no directly comparable administrative data source is available.

• Methodology Table M_8 This also compares FRS and administrative data, but linked at a record level, and shows receipt of DWP benefits for the 2023 to 2024 survey year across either or both of those sources. Percentages are on a grossed basis. Some benefits are better represented on the FRS than others: For example, 99% of adults in receipt of State Pension are represented on the FRS, while only 70% of those in receipt of Attendance Allowance are.

Percentage of adults shown in receipt of DWP benefits, FRS and administrative data, 2023 to 2024, Great Britain

8.4 Sampling Error

Results in this report are subject to a margin of error which can affect how changes should be interpreted, especially between groups and in the short term.

Results from surveys are estimates and not precise figures. In general terms, the greater the sample size, the smaller the uncertainty of the estimates. As noted above, this year’s return to a smaller achieved sample means that the uncertainty around 2023 to 2024 estimates is larger than the previous survey year.

For more information on sampling and non-sampling error in the FRS please refer to the accompanying FRS Quality Assessment Report.

9 Coherence and comparability

The Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonised Standards and Guidance are tools for improving the comparability and coherence of statistics.  

Harmonised standards include definitions, survey questions, suggested presentations and information for data users. The FRS uses these harmonised standards for a number of topics, to align with other producers to increase the usefulness of our statistics. 

The standards have been developed by topic groups, after wide consultation across the GSS and beyond. Further information is available via the Government Statistical Service pages.

Coherence reflects the degree of similarity between related statistics and the fuller insight achieved by drawing them together. The following sections outline the coherence and comparability of FRS data with other sources related to each FRS chapter.

9.1 Adjusting for inflation

Some figures in the main FRS report and the accompanying tables combine several years of income data. With these, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is used to adjust for inflation by bringing values from previous years into current price terms.

9.2 Income and state support

All income figures are presented gross of tax, national insurance and before other deductions from wages except where noted.

It is thought that household surveys underestimate income from both self employment and investment income.  We rely on respondent recall of very detailed financial information across a comprehensive range of income sources. Some of these are hard for respondents to recall. The FRS interviewers ask respondents to check pay slips, tax returns and other financial paperwork at the time of the interview. This helps to improve the reliability of what respondents report they earn.

Income from dividends has, as last year, been included in the sources of income.

The FRS captures detailed information on benefit receipt. In most cases this is analysed at a benefit unit (family) level because income-related benefits are paid to families rather than being separately assessed for each individual. Some respondents do not know or do not have the necessary information to answer specific questions about individual benefits which makes it difficult to collect accurate information: see State Benefits on the Family Resources Survey (WP115).

Relative to administrative records, the FRS under-reports numbers on benefit (caseload). See Methodology Tables M_6a and M_6b for a comparison of (i) numbers on benefit (caseload) and (ii) the average £ per week received, showing any differences between DWP administrative data and the numbers implied by the survey results.

Alternative Data Sources

A Guide to Sources of Data on Earnings and Income

The Income and Earnings Interactive Tool where you can filter by government department and country of interest to find relevant statistics

The Effects of Taxes and Benefits on Household income, disposable income estimate

Family spending in the UK: April 2022 to March 2023

Cost of Living Payment 2023 to 2024 management information - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

Cost of Living Payments Evaluation - GOV.UK

Wealth and Assets Survey

Income, spending and wealth: how do you compare? – joined-up data from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) and the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF) providing insight into the financial vulnerability of different households.

Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings

Labour Force Survey

Stat-Xplore for statistics on benefits, Households Below Average Income, and Pensioners’ Income

Income Dynamics: Income movements and persistence of low incomes

ONS: explanation of incomes and earnings

Changing trends and recent shortages in the labour market, UK: 2016 to 2021

Completing the move to Universal Credit: Statistics related to the move of households claiming Tax Credits and DWP Benefits to Universal Credit

9.3 Tenure

As presented in the FRS, the “social renting sector” is a combination of the categories “Rented from Council” and “Rented from a Housing Association”. These categories are combined because some housing association tenants may misreport that they are council tenants. For instance, where their home used to be owned by the council and although ownership has now transferred to a housing association, the tenant may still think that their landlord is the council (local authority).

FRS outcomes are similar in composition to the English Housing Survey (EHS).

Alternative Data Sources

English Housing Survey

English Private Landlords Survey

Index of Private Housing Rental Prices

Private rent and house prices, UK - May 2024, Office for National Statistics

Housing affordability in England and Wales: 2023

Rent affordability: Literature and evidence review: 2019

Landing page of the GSS housing and planning statistics interactive tools (civilservice.gov.uk)

9.4 Disability

The FRS does not record information on individuals in nursing or retirement homes, since it only surveys private households. This means that figures relating to people in these groups may not be representative of the UK population, as many elderly people may have moved into homes where they can receive more frequent help. Therefore, it is likely that disability figures and impairments among all older people are higher than estimated from the FRS.

The way in which disabled people have been identified in the FRS has changed over time. From 2002 to 2003 statistics were based on responses to questions about barriers across several areas of life; thereafter until survey year 2011 to 2012 they were based on those reporting barriers across nine areas of life.

From the 2012 to 2013 survey year, a person is considered to have a disability if they regard themselves as having a long-standing illness, disability or impairment which causes substantial difficulty with day-to-day activities. This updated definition is consistent with the core definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010, and complies with harmonised standards for social surveys published in August 2011:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/harmonisation/primary-set-of-harmonised-concepts-and-questions/index.html

An impairment is different to a medical condition. It looks at the functions that a person either cannot perform or has difficulty performing because of their health condition. For example, glaucoma is a medical condition but being unable to see or being partially sighted is an impairment.

https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/impairment/

Some people classified as disabled and having rights under the Equality Act 2010 are not captured by this definition, such as people with a long-standing illness or disability which is not currently affecting their day-to-day activities.

https://gss.civilservice.gov.uk/policy-store/long-lasting-health-conditions-and-illness/#questions

Figures in tables 4.1 to 4.6 are consistent with the Employment of Disabled People 2024 publication.  Employment figures in table 4.7 are close to the Labour Force Survey, but the Labour Force Survey remains the preferred source of data on economic inactivity by reason.

Alternative Data Sources

Outcomes for disabled people in the UK 2021

The employment of disabled people 2024

Labour market data for protected groups in Wales and the UK, April 2004 to March 2021

Labour market statistics (Annual Population Survey) Wales: 2023

Labour Market Statistics for Scotland by Disability: January to December 2022

Employment Gap in Northern Ireland 2020

Disability within the Northern Ireland Labour Market

Revisions to medical condition ICD high level grouping codes for ESA and IB/SDA

Economic inactivity data from the Labour Force Survey

Labour market status of disabled people, Labour Force Survey

9.5 Care

FRS respondents are asked if they receive care from anyone. This includes both professional help – paid-for care from the local authority, health professionals or domestic staff – but it also includes informal care.  This is any care where their carer is not doing it as a paid job; it can be for many, or only a few hours a week, and can take several different forms. The survey is intentionally not prescriptive about what counts as care; it could, for example, include going shopping for someone, or helping them with paperwork. 

The FRS does not record information on individuals in nursing or retirement homes. This means that figures relating to people in these groups may not be representative of the UK population, as many elderly people may have moved into homes where they can receive more frequent help. Therefore, it is likely that care provision and receipt amongst older people is higher than estimated from the FRS. 

Where a care recipient is receiving care at least once a week, further questions are asked to determine the care provider and the length of time spent providing care by each carer. 

FRS respondents are also asked if they provide care to someone else on an informal basis. That person could be living with them, in their household, or they could live somewhere else (outside the household).   

Alternative Data Sources 

Census 2021 (Unpaid Care) dataset : Provision of unpaid care - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) 

Unpaid care by age, sex and deprivation, England and Wales: Census 2021 - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) 

Unpaid care expectancies, England - Office for National Statistics

Health, Disability and Unpaid Care, Census 2021 in England and Wales  

The geographic divide in general health, disability and unpaid care: Census 2021 - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) 

Personal Social Services Adult Social Care Survey Series (England) Personal Social Services Adult Social Care Survey - NHS Digital 

GSS Interactive tool: UK adult social care statistics  

Health Survey for England Series Health Survey for England - NHS Digital 

Scottish Health Survey Series Scottish Health Survey - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) 

National Survey for Wales Series National Survey for Wales - GOV.WALES 

Health Survey Northern Ireland Series Health survey Northern Ireland - Department of Health (health-ni.gov.uk) 

English Longitudinal Study of Ageing Wave 9, 2002-2019 

ELSA Wave 10 (2021-23) has now been released and is available to use with Study documentation - ELSA

Understanding Society data access UK Data Service › Study 

Sandwich carers, UK: January 2021 to May 2023 - Office for National Statistics

Sandwich Carers dataset Sandwich carers, UK - Office for National Statistics

9.6 Pension participation

The FRS pension participation data tables present estimates for both ‘all adults’ and ‘all working-age adults’. Those over State Pension age are often excluded from analysis of pension participation in other publications, although they could continue to work and participate in pension schemes. The ‘all adults’ category allows data for this group to be represented and provides continuity across all chapters within the FRS.  

The data presented does not separate by eligibility for automatic enrolment. Therefore, the categories shown (i.e. employees) will include individuals both eligible and ineligible for automatic enrolment.

Individuals who are not eligible are often still automatically enrolled by their employers, and those earning between the Lower Earnings Limit and the £10,000 trigger are still due employer contributions to their pensions if they choose to opt in themselves.

Employer-sponsored pensions comprise any company or occupational pension scheme run by an employer, including group personal pensions and group stakeholder pensions.  

Individual pensions include individual stakeholder pensions and retirement annuity contracts as well as personal pensions. 

Although the numbers are relatively small, self-employed people can contribute to an employer-sponsored pension scheme, for a variety of reasons. Doctors and dentists in private practice can be members of an occupational pension scheme if they are employed by an organisation offering one. People who have recently become self-employed can continue to contribute to their previous employer scheme and people whose main job is self-employed, may work part-time as an employee and contribute to an employer scheme. These circumstances are captured within the FRS tables under the ‘Self-Employed – Other’ category.

Alternative Data Sources 

Occupational Pension Schemes Survey

Note that the collection and publication of the annual Occupational Pension Schemes Survey (OPSS) has ceased. Another publication has superseded this. 

Employers’ Pension Provision Survey 

HMRC Pensions Tables 

ELSA Wave 10 (2021 to 2023)

Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (pension tables) 

Household total wealth in Great Britain: April 2020 to March 2022 – Office for National Statistics

9.7 Savings and investment

The FRS captures information on liquid financial assets, referred to in the survey as ‘savings and investments’.  Estimates should be treated with caution, as they are likely to be under-estimates, since respondents often inaccurately report their account details.

New categories have been applied for total savings bands. Tables 7.9, 7.10, 7.11 and 7.12 have been published, as two variations. Those with suffix ‘a’ show the original savings bands, while those with suffix ‘b’ show the revised bands; to allow consistency for users. 

The process of gathering information on savings and investments maintained the methodology used since 2020 to 2021:

• Respondents who have at least one account are asked, as a benefit unit, to say which of several £ bands their total level of savings and investments are in.
• Benefit units that report between £1,500 and less than £30,000 are then asked, for each of their accounts and assets, how much each is worth and how much interest they accrue. The total level of savings and investments is then calculated using this set of reported values.
• Benefit units with reported savings and investments outside those limits – below £1,500 or above £30,000 – are only asked how much interest each account and asset accrue. These respondents are also asked to estimate the value of all their current accounts and basic bank accounts combined.

Alternative Data Sources

Annual savings statistics 2023: HMRC annual statistics on Individual Savings Accounts, Child Trust Funds and Help to Save accounts

Wealth and Assets Survey: Household total wealth in Great Britain: April 2020 to March 2022

9.8 Self employment

The FRS asks a detailed set of questions to capture earnings from self employment, as described in the Glossary, at the end of this document. 

The FRS does not fully capture information on all types of income-in-kind accurately – for example, benefits of vehicles, computers and mobile phones purchased by the business – that are also for personal use. These benefits are likely to be more important for the self-employed than for employees. Therefore, the FRS earnings measures are likely to underestimate the true monetary and other benefits of self employment. However, it is very difficult to quantify this.

Other benefits of self employment compared to employment are not captured, such as flexibility in working patterns, independence and flexibility in the way money is drawn from the business. The complexity of self employment circumstances, with irregular income and benefits-in-kind coming from a range of sources, could also contribute to inaccuracy of information capture.

For self-employed individuals, net income figures are presented after any deductions which include, but are not limited to income tax, national insurance and pension contributions. Where gross income figures are presented, these include all these elements.

One of the significant advantages of the FRS is that it has captured self employment in a consistent way over time. Therefore, the trends in self employment compared to employment are likely to be reasonably accurate.

Alternative Data Sources

Trends in self employment in the UK 

ONS employees and self employed by industry

Understanding changes in self-employment in the UK - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

9.9 Household food security and food bank usage

Since the introduction of questions on household food security in the 2019 to 2020 survey year the FRS continues to provide evidence on this subject. From April 2021, the FRS asked additional questions on food bank usage. Food banks can provide support other than food, such as financial advice or mental health support, but the FRS records “usage” as visits to a food bank for the purpose of obtaining emergency food supplies only. From April 2023, the FRS added further questions on food support, from sources other than food banks: relatives and friends, local authorities, or some other charitable institution.

These questions are put to the person who has the best information about food preparation and shopping for the household. In common with the rest of the FRS, household food security questions focus on the period immediately before the interview (30 days).

For household food bank usage, questions are asked about two separate time periods: a lead-in question asks about usage within the 12 months prior to interview; and then households that report using a food bank in the last 12 months are asked about usage within the 30 days prior to the interview. The questions do not directly ask about the food bank usage needs of children, and it cannot be determined which individual or individuals the food parcels are for.

Caution is needed when comparing household food security status with 12-month food bank usage. The effect of household food security upon food bank usage, cannot be fully deduced because the former only asks about the household’s circumstances in the last 30 days.

The questions used by the FRS are like those used by other public bodies in the UK, and also internationally, but there are some differences in their application.

These statistics should be treated with caution when interpreting them:

• Where a household is food insecure, information about the individual experiences of food insecurity within the household is not available. A young child’s experience in a food insecure household may be very different from their parent’s, for example.
• Household food security statistics do not directly measure hunger. They instead explore the financial situation of households and how that affects their access to food. Only households with very low food security would anticipate substantive disruption to their food intake.
• The statistics presented exclude shared households, such as a house shared by a group of professionals.

With both measures of household food bank usage captured in the FRS, caution should be taken when interpreting figures and comparing with other sources. Most other sources capture usage from a single period, so may only be comparable to one FRS measure, if at all. It should also be noted that some sources measure individual food bank usage rather than household.

Alternative Data Sources

Food and you 2 – Wave 8 Food Standards Agency

Food and you 2 – Wave 7 Food Standards Agency

ONS: The impact of winter pressures on different population groups in Great Britain: 18 October 2023 to 1 January 2024

ONS: Impact of increased cost of living on adults across Great Britain: July to October 2023

 9.10 Childcare

Questions on childcare have been present and available on the underlying FRS dataset for over ten years. Due to the increased interest in the topic, data tables were added to the main annual publication for 2022 to 2023, and have been included again this year. A selection of childcare options have also been added to the FRS section of Stat-Xplore, enabling users to create their own tables of statistics.

The development of these tables has taken coherence into account, which is the approach to categorisation and naming in regard to other data sources which report on childcare. This includes the approach to banding childcare hours used and grouping of childrens’ ages. Furthermore, breakdowns by age include information for children aged from 0 to 16, because this is the range of ages covered by most policy areas relating to childcare costs, including eligibility on Universal Credit for childcare costs.

The scope of the data is all families with children, as the FRS questionnaire asks all if they use childcare. If they do, data on the type of childcare, its cost and number of hours is then captured. Then, within the FRS dataset, one record is created per child, per childcare provider used for that child. This means that a child can have more than one record on the FRS dataset, if (for example) the family uses a breakfast club and a childminder, then two detailed records will be created.​ Other types of childcare surveyed include after-school clubs and holiday clubs, and the FRS can also record whether a nanny or au pair is employed by the family. Overall, eighteen different types of childcare are listed; these have been categorised into two high-level categories (“formal” and “informal”), with further aggregated sub-groups.

Users are advised to familiarise themselves with all accompanying definitions in the Glossary and the Notes tab of published tables, to prevent any potential misinterpretation. The Notes tab included in the data tables also has some example interpretations for the breakdowns.

Alternative Data Sources 

DWP Universal Credit statistics (childcare):

Universal Credit claimants eligible for and receiving the childcare element between March 2021 to February 2022

Department for Education statistics on childcare (early years): Childcare and early years survey of parents

Childcare and early years provider survey, Reporting year 2024

Department of Health (Northern Ireland) statistics for Children in Need: Children’s Social Care Statistics for Northern Ireland 2023/24 - GOV.UK

Coram Family and Childcare Coram Childcare Survey 2024

 10 Data Revision

DWP complies with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for Statistics. We’ve published a policy on revisions of DWP Official Statistics in accordance with T3.9 of the Code of Practice.

Planned

Revisions or changes planned for the next or subsequent year are announced and described in the Release Strategy. Users are invited to consult with us regarding the likely impact of these changes. Please see the DWP Statistical Work Programme for more details. 

Unplanned

In the 2022 to 2023 release, one element of the ‘Low-income benefits and tax credits Cost of Living Payment’ was not included, which impacted on the data tables. Around 40 estimates changed (out of over 10,000 estimates published). Revisions to tables were small, making a difference of up to a single percentage point either way, compared to the existing figures. These were revised on the same day that the 2023 to 2024 data was published. The chapters affected are Income & State Support, Care, Savings and Investment, Household Food Security and Childcare.

As routine, any unplanned changes are notified to users via our Collections page updates, when the date of the publication is announced on GOV.UK. For example, the revisions described above were notified to users on 27 February 2025.

If any further changes occur within the 4-week window prior to publication these are detailed within an update to the Collections Page on the day of publication and further detail provided in this Background, Information and Methodology report.

11 Trade-offs between output quality components

The FRS is produced under the Code of Practice for Statistics. Compliance with the Code gives users confidence that published government statistics have public value, are high quality, and are produced by people and organisations that are trustworthy.

Producers have to strike a balance between delivering quality and public value. Quality means that statistics fit their intended uses, are based on appropriate data and methods, and are not materially misleading. Value means that the statistics and data are useful, easy to access, remain relevant, and support understanding of important issues.

The United Nations’ Canberra Group Handbook on Household Income Statistics states that income statistics are “inevitably some of the most complex statistics produced by national and international organisations”. This is reflected in the extensive production and validation procedures described in the accompanying FRS Quality Assessment Report. These procedures have been developed for three main reasons.

• Statistics derived from the FRS are amongst the most high-profile produced by DWP and across government. The HBAI publication, based on FRS data, meets DWP’s statutory obligation to publish a measure of relative and absolute low income, and combined low income and material deprivation for children under section 4 of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016.

• Because of the complexity of the analysis and the range of income sources and other variables used in the calculations, issues have arisen in some previous publications. The 2005 to 2006 HBAI publication was re-issued due to problems with the grossing factors being applied to the dataset. The role that the Institute for Fiscal Studies now has in quality assuring the HBAI dataset and results originally arose in part due to quality concerns with results.

• The datasets are used for a wide range of analyses beyond the published tables, and small groups of cases could affect these results. This requires a thorough examination of case-specific information. For many users, the dataset is more important than the statistical releases themselves.

Timeliness of the FRS has improved since 2017 with the move to a March publication window. Beforehand, the FRS was regularly published in June. This 12-month gap between the close of fieldwork and publication of results is comparable to or shorter than similar household surveys.

The time taken stems from the need to validate the whole dataset. Given the large number of variables used in the derivation of the HBAI and PI datasets, it is not possible simply to isolate the key variables to release headline results earlier. The length of time invested in production is a key mitigation to the risk that the eventual statistics and dataset are inaccurate in their portrayal of UK household incomes.

The use of the FRS dataset for policy modelling places a premium on accuracy, in that an inaccurate dataset could lead to policy costs or benefits being incorrectly assessed, and/or a suboptimal choice of policy option. It is therefore DWP’s view that the processes set out above are needed under the current survey model.

One of the potential future benefits of the FRS Administrative Data Transformation Project is an improvement in timeliness (see Technical Report for more detail on this development).

12 Glossary

This glossary provides a brief explanation for each of the key terms used in the FRS.  Further details on these definitions, including full derivations of variables, are available on request from the FRS team at team.frs@dwp.gov.uk.

Adult

All individuals who are aged 16 and over are classified as an adult, unless the individual is defined as a dependent child. All adults in the household are interviewed as part of the FRS.

Age

Respondent’s age at last birthday (at the time of the interview).

Automatic enrolment

Automatic enrolment requires all employers to enrol their eligible workers into a workplace pension scheme if they are not already in one. This enrolment also commits the employer to make contributions into the employee’s pension. The staged timetable began in October 2012 for larger firms, with enrolment for all employers completed in 2019. To preserve individual responsibility for the decision to save, workers can opt out of the scheme. To be eligible for automatic enrolment, the jobholder must be at least 22 years old, under State Pension age, earn above the earnings threshold for automatic enrolment, and work or usually work in the UK.

However, those not eligible for automatic enrolment may be entitled to opt in. People currently defined as self-employed could have been a member of an employer scheme from past auto-enrolment, and are entitled to remain in their auto-enrolled scheme and make their own contributions. Likewise, someone who is now an employee, who was previously self-employed can have employer contributions to their previous scheme.

For more information see this pensions guide.

Benefit unit or family

A benefit unit may consist of: a single adult, or a married or cohabiting couple, plus any dependent children. Same-sex partners (civil partners and cohabitees) have been included in the same benefit unit since January 2006. Where a total for a benefit unit is presented (such as total benefit unit income) this includes income from adults plus any income from children.

There are various types of benefit unit:

• Pensioner couple: Benefit units headed by a couple where the head of the benefit unit is over State Pension age. Note that this differs from definitions used in the Households Below Average Income, Income Dynamics and Pensioners’ Incomes Statistics reports. These publications define a benefit unit as a pensioner couple if either the head of the benefit unit or their partner is over State Pension age.
• Pensioner couple, married or civil partnered: Benefit units headed by a couple where the head of the benefit unit is over State Pension age and the couple are either married or in a civil partnership.
• Pensioner couple, cohabiting: Benefit units headed by a couple where the head of the benefit unit is over State Pension age, and the couple are neither married nor in a civil partnership.
• Single male pensioner: Benefit units headed by a single male adult over State Pension age.
• Single female pensioner: Benefit units headed by a single female adult over State Pension age.
• Couple with children: Benefit units containing two adults, headed by a non-pensioner, with dependent children.
• Couple with children, married or civil partnered: Benefit units containing two adults, headed by a non-pensioner, with dependent children and the couple are either married or in a civil partnership.
• Couple with children, cohabiting: Benefit units containing two adults, headed by a non-pensioner, with dependent children and the couple are neither married nor in a civil partnership.
• Couple without children: Benefit units containing two adults, headed by a non-pensioner, with no dependent children.
• Couple without children, married or civil partnered: Benefit units containing two adults, headed by a non-pensioner, with no dependent children and the couple are either married or in a civil partnership.
• Couple without children, cohabiting: Benefit units containing two adults, headed by a non-pensioner, with no dependent children and the couple are neither married nor in a civil partnership.
• Single with children: Benefit units containing a single adult, headed by a non-pensioner, with dependent children.
• Single male without children: Benefit units containing a single male adult, headed by a non-pensioner, with no dependent children.
• Single female without children: Benefit units containing a single female adult, headed by a non-pensioner, with no dependent children.

Benefits

Financial support from the government. Most of these benefits are administered by DWP. The major exceptions are Housing Benefit and Council Tax Reduction, which are administered by local authorities and certain Scottish benefits administered by Social Security Scotland. For more information see Devolved Benefits below.

Child Benefit is administered by HM Revenue and Customs. HMRC also administer Tax Credits. These are not treated as benefits, but both Tax Credits and benefits are included in the term State Support.

Benefits are often divided into income-related benefits and non-income-related benefits. In assessing entitlement to the former, the claimant’s income and savings will be checked against the rules of the benefit. In contrast, eligibility for non-income-related benefits is dependent on the claimant’s circumstances (a recent bereavement, for example), rather than their income and savings.

‘Disability-related benefits’ is the term used to describe all benefits paid on grounds of disability. These are: Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Severe Disablement Allowance, Attendance Allowance, the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, Troubles Permanent Disablement Payment Scheme, Adult Disability Payment and Child Disability Payment.

‘Legacy Benefits’ is the term used to collectively refer to the following benefits: Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit, Housing Benefit, Income Support, Income-Related Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) and Income-Related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which are being phased out. These benefits are being replaced by Universal Credit. See separate entry. 

Some benefits have sample sizes which are too small to be presented separately in this publication. A list of the main state benefits shown in “state support” tables in this publication can be found below:

Income-related benefits:

• Council Tax Reduction
• Employment and Support Allowance (income-related element)
• Income Support
• Universal Credit
• Housing Benefit
• Pension Credit

Non-income-related benefits:

• Attendance Allowance
• Employment and Support Allowance (contributory element)
• Child Benefit
• Disability Living Allowance (both mobility and care components)
• Personal Independence Payment (Daily Living and Mobility components)
• Carer’s Allowance
• State Pension

Child

A dependent child is defined as an individual aged under 16. A person will also be defined as a child if they are 16 to 19 years old and they are:

• Not married nor in a civil partnership nor living with a partner; and
• Living with parents (or a responsible adult); and
• In full-time non-advanced education or in unwaged government training

Child Benefit

This is a non-income-related benefit in terms of eligibility (but remains taxable in households where one adult was earning more than £50,000 per year in the 2023 to 2024 survey year).

Childcare

‘Childcare’ is the care that is provided outside of educational hours for children under 16. In the FRS, questions are asked of people who have children in their benefit unit. Questions relate to the family’s use of childcare in the 7 days immediately before the interview. Respondents are asked about the circumstances of childcare use, for each child one at a time, collecting information about:

• the type of childcare provider used
• the number of hours of childcare (paid and unpaid)
• whether the childcare costs anything (if yes, how much?)
• how frequently the cost of childcare was paid
• whether the childcare is registered, approved, employer provided or not

Childcare provider types are not mutually exclusive, as one child can use multiple different types of childcare. There are several categories:

Formal

• Playgroup or pre-school: nursery education often run by a community/voluntary group, parents themselves, or privately. Fees are usually charged, with sessions of up to 4 hours. Pre-school is used to describe a type of playgroup.
• Day nursery or crèche: nursery education running for the whole working day but may be closed for a few weeks in the summer (if at all). They may be run by employers as a workplace crèche, private companies, community/voluntary groups or the Local Authority, and can take children who are a few months to 5-years-old.
• Nursery school: a school in its own right, with most children aged 3 to 5. Sessions normally run for 2 to 3 hours in the morning and/or afternoon.
• Nursery class: a class attached to a primary or infants’ school but is often a separate unit within the school, with those in the nursery class aged 3 or 4. Sessions normally run for 2 to 3 hours in the morning and/or afternoon.
• Reception class (at Primary/Infants school): a class that children go into when they first start school, with those in the reception class aged 4 or 5.
• Breakfast club: a club providing breakfast and activities for 4 to 16-year-olds before the start of the school day. They are usually, but not always, run by and physically located in schools. Fees may be charged.
• After school club/activities: After school clubs offer a variety of activities for 4 to 16-year-olds including arts and crafts, sports or games. May include homework clubs. The clubs are held in a variety of venues including schools and community centres or halls. They can serve several schools in the same area and are open from the end of the school day until 6pm. Fees are usually charged.
• Holiday scheme/club: These offer school-holiday childcare for 4 to 16-year-olds, via a variety of activities including arts and crafts, sports, games and outings. Meals may be provided and fees are usually charged.
• Special day school/nursery unit for children with special educational needs: a nursery, school or unit for children with special educational needs. This does not include regular school.
• Childminder: someone who uses their own home to look after others’ children.
• Nanny or au pair: a nanny is a paid employee and professional caregiver, who looks after a child in its own home. An au pair is usually on a form of exchange scheme (from another country), and helps with childcare on a casual basis, usually in exchange for food, accommodation and pocket money.
• Other formal: any other form of childcare provided by an official institution.

Informal

• Family members: a relative of the child being cared for who is not one of their primary caregivers. There are several sub-categories:
  • Grandparents
  • Non-resident parent/ex-spouse/ex-partner
  • Child’s brother or sister
  • Other relatives
• Non relatives: someone who is not related to the child:
  • Friends or neighbours
  • Other non-relatives (includes babysitters)

Council Tax

The tax is based on a set of bands that a property’s value falls into and is evaluated accordingly by each local or unitary authority. Its headline rate is based on two adults per household.

Devolved Benefits

The Scotland Act 2016 gave Scottish Parliament powers over a number of social security benefits, transferring ownership from DWP to the Scottish Government. In September 2018, Carer’s Allowance became the first of these benefits to have policy ownership transferred from DWP to Scottish Ministers. On 1 April 2020, executive competence transferred to the Scottish Government for all remaining disability and industrial injuries benefits due to be devolved. Further details of these are given below:

Social Security Scotland - Benefits

Carer Benefits

• Carer’s Allowance Supplement – an automatic payment made twice a year to people who get Carer’s Allowance through DWP.
• Young Carer Grant - an annual payment for 16, 17 or 18-year-olds caring for people who get a disability benefit for an average of 16 hours a week or more.

Disability Benefits

• Adult Disability Payment - extra money to help people who have a long-term illness or a disability that affects their everyday life. It replaces Personal Independence Payment people in Scotland, as delivered by DWP.

• Child Disability Payment - extra money to help with the costs of caring for a child with a disability or ill-health condition. From 2021 to 2022 it began to replace Disability Living Allowance for children in Scotland, as delivered by DWP. Many existing child DLA claims will continue until 2025.

Family Payments

From October 2018, the Sure Start Maternity Grant was replaced in Scotland by the Best Start Grant, comprising:

• Best Start Grant Pregnancy and Baby Payment – one off payment from 24 weeks in pregnancy up until a baby turns 6 months for families who get certain benefits.
• Best Start Grant Early Learning Payment – one off payment when a child is between two and three years and six months for families who get certain benefits.
• Best Start Grant School Age Payment – one off payment when a child would normally start ‘primary one’ for families who get certain benefits.

• Best Start Foods – is broadly the Scottish equivalent of Healthy Start Vouchers: A pre-paid card from pregnancy up to when a child turns three for families on certain benefits to help buy healthy food.

• Scottish Child Payment began in February 2021 for households with children under the age of six. Eligibility was extended to under 16 year-olds from 14 November 2022. SCP is paid every four weeks to help towards the costs of looking after each child under 16 for families who get certain benefits.

Heating Benefits

• Child Winter Heating Payment - a payment to help families of a child on the highest rate care component of DLA for Children to heat their homes.
• Winter Heating Payment – an annual payment to help people on income-related benefits who might have extra heating needs during the winter.

Other Benefits

• Funeral Support Payment – money towards funeral costs for people on certain benefits who are responsible for paying for it.
• Job Start Payment – for 16 to 24-year-olds who have been on certain benefits for six months or more to help with the costs of starting a job.

Disability

The definition of disability used in this publication is consistent with the core definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010. A person is considered to have a disability if they “have a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on their ability to do normal daily activities”. Whereby ‘substantial’ means more than minor or trivial, and ‘long-term’ means 12 months or more. However, some individuals classified as disabled and having rights under the Equality Act 2010 are not captured by this definition:

• People with a long-standing illness or disability who would experience substantial difficulties without medication or treatment
• People who have been diagnosed with cancer, HIV infection or multiple sclerosis but who are not currently experiencing difficulties with their day-to-day activities
• People with progressive conditions, where the effect of the impairment does not yet impede their lives
• People who were disabled in the past but are no longer limited in their daily lives are still covered by the Equality Act 2010

This definition of disability differs from that used for Economic status.

Dividend

A person may get a dividend payment if they own shares in a company. They do not pay tax on any dividend income that falls within their Personal Allowance (the amount of income they can earn each year without paying tax). They also get a dividend allowance each year; tax is only payable on the dividend income above that dividend allowance.

Economic status

This classification follows the harmonised output category for economic status, based on respondents’ answers to the survey questions. All definitions conform to those of the International Labour Organization (ILO):

• Employee: where respondents have an arrangement with an employer, whereby work is done in exchange for a wage or salary. This would include those doing unpaid work in a business that a relative owns.
• Self-employed: where respondents report regular working activities, which over time are responsible only to themselves (and not an employer). Various groups are classified as self-employed, including farmers, doctors in private practice and some builders, as well as anyone whose job is habitually done on a freelance basis (e.g. journalists or musicians). The self-employed include anyone doing work for their own business, but which is currently unpaid.

Several respondents have more than one job. The FRS identifies which of these is their ‘main job’. This is the job which the respondent says is the dominant activity.  Where they cannot decide, the number of hours worked will determine which is the main job. This process of categorisation also applies to respondents who are employees in one job but self-employed in another; whilst the survey will capture information on both jobs, only one can be their main job.

• Unemployed: Adults who are under State Pension age and not working, but are available and have been actively seeking work in the last four weeks; includes those who were waiting to take up a job already obtained and were to start in the next two weeks.
• Economically inactive: Individuals who are both out of work, and not seeking or not available to work. There are several sub-categories:
  • Retired: individuals who are over State Pension age, or say they are now retired.
  • Student: individuals who have not completed their education.
  • Looking after family or home: working-age individuals who are looking after their family or their home.
  • Permanently sick or disabled: working-age individuals who have been sick, injured or disabled for longer than 28 weeks.
  • Temporarily sick or disabled: working-age individuals who have been sick, injured or disabled for less than 28 weeks. Note that the sick or disabled definitions are different to that used for Disability, as they are based on different questions that are only asked of working-age adults who are not working.
  • Other inactive: all respondents not already classified above.

Employment status

This classification is equivalent to economic status but includes those in employment only.

Ethnic group

The ethnic group to which respondents consider that they belong. Ethnicity representation rates are now calculated from known declarations and exclude ‘choose not to declare’ and ‘unknown’.

Where respondents do volunteer their ethnicity, this is captured as one of several recognised groups. This is consistent with the harmonised principles for ethnicity, as set out by the Government Statistical Service, wherever social surveys are carried out.

• White
• Irish Traveller
• Gypsy or Irish Traveller
• Mixed or Multiple ethnic groups
• Asian or Asian British
• Indian
• Pakistani
• Bangladeshi
• Chinese
• Arab
• Any other Asian background
• Black or African or Caribbean or Black British
• Other ethnic group

Sample sizes for ‘Gypsy, Traveller or Irish Traveller’ are small.  In Northern Ireland, ‘Irish Traveller’ is included in ‘Other ethnic group’ whereas elsewhere ‘Gypsy or Irish Traveller’ is included in ‘White’.

Food bank usage

See Household food bank usage

Food security

See Household food security

Full-time education

Individuals registered as full-time at an educational establishment. Students on sandwich courses are coded as working, or studying, depending on their position at the time of interview.

Harmonised principles

The harmonised principles contain harmonised definitions, survey questions, standards for administrative data and standards for presentation. They have been developed by topic groups, after wide consultation with producers and customers across the GSS and beyond. Further information is available via the Government Statistical Service pages.

Head of benefit unit

If the household reference person does not belong to the benefit unit, then the head of benefit unit is simply the first person from that benefit unit, in the order they were named in the interview. If the household reference person does belong to the benefit unit, they are also the head of that benefit unit.

Household

A household consists of one person living alone or a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address, who share cooking facilities and share a living room or sitting room or dining area. A household will consist of one or more benefit units. Where a total value for a household is presented, such as total household income, this includes income from adults plus any income from children.

Household food bank usage

Household food bank usage in the FRS refers only to visits to a food bank when emergency food supplies (food parcels) were obtained. This excludes visits to the food bank made only for other support (e.g. financial advice or mental health support). The FRS asks food bank usage questions relating to two time periods:

• usage within the 12 months prior to interview
• usage within the 30 days prior to interview

Only households that report using a food bank in the last 12 months are asked about 30-day usage.

Household food security

“Food security” as a concept is defined as “access by all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life”. Questions relate to the household’s experience in the 30 days immediately before the interview.

Each person in the household is asked who is best placed to answer about food shopping and preparation. That person is then asked the first three questions, on whether they are concerned about:

• food running out before they had enough money to buy more
• the food they had bought not lasting, and not having money to buy more
• not being able to afford balanced meals.

The possible answers are ‘often, ‘sometimes’ or ‘never’ true. If respondents say that all three statements are never true they will not be asked further questions on food security. If respondents answer that any of these statements are sometimes or often true they will be asked further questions on the extent of their food security.

Taking the responses together, a household ‘score’ for food security is then derived. This measure has four classifications:

• High food security (score=0): The household has no problem, or anxiety about, consistently accessing adequate food
• Marginal food security (score= 1 or 2): The household had problems at times, or anxiety about, accessing adequate food, but the quality, variety, and quantity of their food intake were not substantially reduced
• Low food security (score = 3 to 5): The household reduced the quality, variety, and desirability of their diets, but the quantity of food intake and normal eating patterns were not substantially disrupted
• Very low food security (score = 6 to 10): At times during the last 30 days, eating patterns of one or more household members were disrupted and food intake reduced because the household lacked money and other resources for food.

High and marginal food security households are considered to be “food secure”. Food secure households are considered to have sufficient, varied food to facilitate an active and healthy lifestyle. Conversely, low and very low food security households are considered to be “food insecure”. Food insecure households are where there is risk of, or lack of access to, sufficient, varied food.

The broad structure and sequence of the questions is the same as those used internationally. They are used within the UK (Food Standards Agency) and are also used by other countries, including Statistics Canada and the United States Department of Agriculture, enabling broad international comparability of the results.

Household reference person (HRP)

The highest-income householder. This is defined by:

• In a single-adult household, the HRP is simply the sole householder (i.e. the person in whose name the accommodation is owned or rented).
• If there are two or more householders, the HRP is the householder with the highest personal income, taking all sources of income into account.
• If there are two or more householders who have the same income, the HRP is the elder.

Where we refer to ‘Head’ in tables relating to households, this is the HRP. The head of benefit unit will not necessarily be the HRP.

Household Support Fund  

The Household Support Fund (HSF) supports households across England most in need by helping them with the cost of household essentials. In England, HSF is delivered by Upper Tier Local Authorities (LAs) on behalf of the Department. LAs have discretion on where to focus the support they offer, provided this is in line with DWP’s Guidance. Consequently, there may be differences in eligibility criteria, application methods and the support allocated to individuals in different LAs. Many LAs offer schemes supporting families with children, children eligible for free school meals, pensioners, disabled people and other vulnerable households. The amount of support provided to each award recipient may vary across councils. Devolved administrations decide how to allocate their additional Barnett funding.

Individual

An adult or child. Where ‘people’ are presented, this is all adults and children.

Informal carers

Individuals who provide any regular service or help to someone. That person can be inside or outside of their household, and might be sick, disabled or elderly; this description excludes those who give this service or help as part of a formal job.

Marital status

This is the person’s de facto marital status:

• Married or civil partnership: currently married or in a civil partnership, and not separated from spouse (excludes temporary absences)
• Cohabiting: not married nor in a civil partnership, but living as a couple
• Single: is not currently cohabiting and has never been married nor in a civil partnership
• Widowed: widowed and not currently cohabiting
• Separated: married or in a civil partnership, but separated from spouse and is not currently cohabiting
• Divorced or civil partnership dissolved: marriage or civil partnership legally dissolved and is not currently cohabiting

National Insurance Contributions (NICs)

The class of National Insurance a person pays depends on their employment status and how much they earn.

For employees, the employer will automatically deduct Class 1 contributions from the employee’s pay if the employee is both: under State Pension age and earning more than the primary threshold amount from one job.

• If the employee earns between the lower earnings limit and the primary threshold amount from one job (a week), they do not usually pay National Insurance. If they earn less than the primary threshold amount from one job (a week), they can choose to pay voluntary Class 3 contributions to cover gaps in their National Insurance record.

For the self-employed, the class of National Insurance the person pays depends on their profits.

• If the person’s profits are more than the Lower Profits Limit a year, the person must pay Class 4 contributions.
• For the publication period 2023 to 2024 Class 2 contributions were still payable.

Non-advanced education

Non-advanced education for benefits purposes includes:

• ‘A’ levels or similar qualifications (e.g. the International Baccalaureate and Pre-U)
• ‘T’ levels (introduced in September 2020)
• Scottish national qualifications at higher or advanced higher level
• NVQ at Level 3
• study programme in England
• national diploma
• ordinary national diploma
• national certificate of Edexcel

If the young person is studying for a course that is not classed as advanced education, the education is normally treated as non-advanced. Non-advanced education does not include university courses.

Pension

• Employer-sponsored pension: schemes that are set up and run by the employer.
• Occupational pension: an occupational pension scheme is an arrangement an employer makes to give their employees a pension when they retire. They are often referred to as ‘company pensions’. As of October 2017, the Occupational Pension Schemes regulations introduce restrictions on early exit charges for those aged 55 and over and who are eligible to access the pension freedoms.

There are two main types of occupational pension:

1. Defined-benefit (DB) schemes (also called salary-related pension or superannuation schemes). In a defined benefit scheme, the pension is based on the number of years you belong to the scheme and how much you earn. Your employer contributes to the scheme and trustees look after scheme members’ interests. Employees often have to pay contributions into the scheme on top of those made by the employer. Some schemes are ‘non-contributory’: The employee either makes no contributions, or makes a small contribution, typically one to two per cent of salary.
2. Defined-contribution (DC) schemes (also called Money purchase schemes). A defined contribution scheme can be a personal pension arranged by the individual or a workplace pension arranged by the employer (such as NEST). Money is paid in by the individual or the employer over time and is then invested by the pension provider. The size of the pension available to take out when the individual retires depends on how much was paid in and the level of growth from the investments. With a defined contribution pension the individual can also decide how to take their money out.

• Group personal pension: some employers who do not offer an occupational pension scheme may arrange for a third-party pension provider to offer employees a pension instead. The employer may have negotiated special terms with the provider, which means that administration charges are lower than those for individual personal pensions. Although sometimes still referred to as ‘company pensions’, they are not run by employers and should not be confused with occupational pensions, which have different tax, benefit and contribution rules.
• Group stakeholder pension: like Group Personal Pensions, an employer can make an arrangement with a pension provider and offer their employees a Group Stakeholder Pension (see Stakeholder Pension).
• Personal pension: a pension provided through a contract between an individual and the pension provider. The pension which is produced will be based upon the level of contributions, investment returns and annuity rates; a personal pension can be either employer provided (see Group Personal Pension) or privately purchased (see Private pension).
• Private pension: includes occupational pensions (also known as employer-sponsored pensions) and personal pensions (including stakeholder pensions). People can have several different private pensions at once.
• Stakeholder pension: enables those without earnings, such as non-earning partners, carers, pensioners and students, to pay into a pension scheme. Almost anybody up to the age of 75 may take out a stakeholder pension and it is not necessary to make regular contributions.

For more information, see: GOV.UK pension guide.

Pension Credit

The primary income-related benefit for those of State Pension age and above.

Poundage

The district rate set by local authorities, the eleven district councils in Northern Ireland. It is for services such as refuse collections and disposal, leisure, parks and street cleaning.

Region (also see Rural-Urban classifications)

Regional classifications are based on the standard statistical geography of UK Regions: nine in England, and a single region for each of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Tables will also show statistics for the UK, Great Britain, and England as a whole.  Some split London into Inner and Outer where there is sufficient data to provide meaningful comparisons.

• Inner London boroughs: Camden, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Islington, Kensington and Chelsea, Lambeth, Lewisham, Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Wandsworth, the City of Westminster; and the City of London.
• Outer London boroughs: Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Sutton, Waltham Forest.

Rural-Urban classifications

England and Wales:

The 2011 Rural-Urban Classification for Output Areas in England (and Wales)

The classification defines areas as rural if they fall outside of settlements with more than a resident population of 10,000. The classification assigns them to one of four urban or six rural categories (compressed to two Urban and three Rural for use in FRS published tables):

Broad Category	FRS published tables	Detailed Category: Description
Rural	Mainly rural	Hamlets and Isolated Dwellings in a sparse setting
Rural	Mainly rural	Hamlets and Isolated Dwellings
Rural	Largely rural	Village in a sparse setting
Rural	Largely rural	Village
Rural	Urban with significant rural	Town and Fringe in a sparse setting
Rural	Urban with significant rural	Town and Fringe
Urban	Predominantly urban: city and town	City and Town in a sparse setting
Urban	Predominantly urban: city and town	City and Town
Urban	Predominantly urban: conurbation	Minor conurbation
Urban	Predominantly urban: conurbation	Major conurbation

Scotland:

FRS Data	FRS published tables	Description
Large urban areas	Urban Area	Settlements of over 125,000 people
Other urban areas	Urban Area	Settlements of 10,000 to 125,000 people
Accessible small towns	Small Town	Settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people and within 30 minutes’ drive of a settlement of 10,000 or more
Remote small towns	Small Town	Settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people and with a drive time of between 30 and 60 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more
Very remote small towns	Small Town	Settlements of between 3,000 and 10,000 people and within a drive time of over 60 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more
Accessible rural	Rural Area	Settlements of fewer than 3,000, within 30 minutes’ drive to a settlement of 10,000 or more
Remote rural	Rural Area	Settlements of fewer than 3,000 people and with a drive time of between 30 and 60 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more
Very remote rural	Rural Area	Settlements of fewer than 3,000 people and with a drive time of over 60 minutes to a settlement of 10,000 or more

Northern Ireland:

Since the 2015 review of the ‘Statistical classification and delineation of settlements’, urban settlements in Northern Ireland are classified as those with a population greater than or equal to 5,000 people (Bands A-E).

FRS categories	Settlement (2015) Classification Bands
Belfast City	Band A: Belfast City
Other Urban	Band B: Derry City
Other Urban	Band C: Large Town, population greater than 18,000 people
Other Urban	Band D: Medium Town, population greater than 10,000 but fewer than 18,000 people
Other Urban	Band E: Small Town, population between 5,000 and 9,999 people
Rural	Band F: Intermediate Settlements, population between 2,500 and 4,999 people
Rural	Band G: Village, population between 1,000 and 2,499 people
Rural	Band H: Open Countryside and small villages with population less than 1,000 people

Sandwich carer

A sandwich carer is defined in the FRS as somebody who is aged 16 to 70 and:

• cares for a child within their household and/or has a child dependent on them within their household; and
• also cares for an adult relative.

Savings

The total value of all liquid assets, including fixed-term investments.  Pound amounts are informed by responses to questions on the value of assets or, in some cases, estimated from the interest on the savings. Note that banded savings do not include assets held by children in the benefit unit or household. 

The FRS asks questions about all saving and investment products, including bank and building society accounts, and shares. These products go by many names. In this publication, the products are labelled as follows:

• Basic bank account: This type of account is similar to a current account. Payments can be received from other sources and it can pay bills by direct debit, but unlike a current account there are no overdraft facilities. Withdrawals can be made from cash machines and, in some cases, over the counter of the bank or building society itself.
• Child Trust Funds (CTFs) have been replaced by Junior ISAs (JISAs) as the main tax-free savings account for children. See ISA.
• Current account: This includes all accounts at both banks and building societies, which are used for day-to-day transactions; with a bank card. Overdraft facilities may be offered.
• Company share schemes (profit sharing): Some companies provide extra rewards or bonuses to their employees depending on the profitability of the company. In publicly traded companies, this often takes the form of shares in the company. This label is given to any scheme which follows this general principle.
• Credit union: A credit union is a financial co-operative similar in many respects to mainstream building societies. Its members both own and control the credit union, which is run solely for their benefit. All members of a specific credit union must share what is known as a “common bond” i.e. they must be connected in some way to the other members of that credit union. The members pool their savings into a single ‘pot’ from which loans can be made to members of the credit union. Members who have deposited money receive an annual dividend, while those to whom money is lent must pay interest on the loan.
• Endowment policy (not linked): An Endowment Policy taken out to repay a mortgage but no longer used to do so. This is where the mortgage has either been paid off or, more usually, converted to a different method of repayment. The respondent has decided to retain the endowment as an investment, even though it is no longer intended to repay the mortgage.
• ISA: An Individual Savings Account (ISA) pays interest on a tax-free basis. There are 4 types of Individual Savings Accounts (ISA):
  • cash ISA
  • stocks and shares ISA
  • innovative finance ISA
  • Lifetime ISA

Tax is not deducted from interest on cash in an ISA, or income or capital gains from investments in an ISA

• Junior ISA: To be eligible children must be under 18 and living in the UK. Junior ISAs are now included at the question ChSave. There is a limit on annual payments into JISAs. As with Child Trust Funds, the Junior ISA is a long-term savings account which can only be accessed by the child on their 18th birthday. The Junior ISA is then transferred to an Adult ISA so that the child can access their money.
• Investment trust: See Unit trusts.
• National Savings & Investments (NS&I): All types of investments in this category are collected on the survey, including (Income) Bonds and Direct Saver.
• Payment Exception Service: The Post Office Card Account scheme ended in November 2022. People who previously had their benefits paid into a Post Office card account (POCA) and could not open or manage a bank account will automatically have been moved to the new Payment Exception Service.
• Premium bonds: Investments which do not earn interest but are entered in a monthly draw for tax-free cash prizes.
• Other bank or building society account: Accounts belonging to adults recorded under categories “savings account, investment account or bond, any other account with bank building society, etc.”
• Stocks and shares: This includes all shares, bonds, debentures, and other securities which are usually traded on the financial markets. A share is a single unit of ownership in a company. If respondents are members of a shares club they will be included with those owning stocks and shares. ‘Stocks’ is the general term for various types of security issued to raise financial support. Bonds issued by foreign governments, or local authorities would also be recorded here.
• Unit trusts: A collectively managed investment in the financial markets, where investors buy ‘units’ of a fund, which invests in shares, stocks, Gilts, etc. The data presented for unit trusts also includes investment trusts, since these two assets are combined in the FRS.
• Any other type of asset: This is a catch-all category for the small numbers who own other types of financial asset. This includes Gilts (HM Government bonds) which raise money for the UK Government by offering a secure investment, usually over a fixed term, and usually with a set rate of interest although some are index-linked. Interest is paid half-yearly.

The above products cover all types of savings and accounts. Some of them are grouped together in other ways in the tables, for example as a ‘direct payment account’ that can accept electronic payment of benefits via BACS (the Banker’s Automated Clearing System).

Sources of income

• Wages and salaries: for a respondent currently working as an employee, income from wages and salaries is equal to: gross pay before any deductions, less any refunds of income tax, any motoring and mileage expenses, any refunds for items of household expenditure and any Statutory Sick Pay or Statutory Maternity Pay, plus bonuses received over the last 12 months (converted to a weekly amount) and any children’s earnings from part-time jobs.
• Self-employed income: the total amount of income received from self employment gross of income tax and national insurance payments, based on profits (where the individual considers themselves as running a business) or on estimated drawings otherwise. Excludes any profits due to other partners in the business. Any losses are recorded as such.
  • Self-employed respondents are asked questions on their most recent business accounts as submitted to HMRC: dates of the accounts, profit or loss figures, and amounts paid in income tax and National Insurance Contributions.
  • They are then asked if they draw money from their business accounts for non-business purposes, such as for payments to themselves, personal spending, paying domestic bills etc. and how much this is per month on average. They are also asked if they receive other income from their business for personal use, e.g. cash in hand, and how much this is per month on average.
  • Those who do not keep annual business accounts and do not draw money for non-business purposes are asked for their income after paying for materials, equipment, goods etc. and whether they make income tax and National Insurance payments on this amount.
• Investments: Interest and dividends received on savings and investments. See Savings for details of investments covered by the FRS. See separate entry for Dividend.
• Universal Credit: See separate entry.
• Tax Credits: See separate entry.
• State Pension plus any Pension Credit: for any adults who are over State Pension age, any State Pension plus any Pension Credit which is received; these benefits are shown together because of known issues with separating these amounts for pensioners.
• Other pensions: payments received from pension schemes, including occupational, stakeholder or personal pension schemes; employee pensions for surviving spouses, annuity pensions, trusts and covenants.
• Disability benefits: payments received from any of the benefits payable due to disability – see Benefits.
• Other benefits: payments received from any of the other Benefits.
• Other sources: payments from all other sources including, for example, landlord income and royalties, odd jobs, sub-tenants, baby-sitting, allowances from absent spouses including child maintenance and alimony, organisations, educational grants and Healthy Start Vouchers.

State Pension age

During the whole of the 2023 to 2024 survey year the State Pension age was 66.

Since 6 April 2010, the State Pension age had increased gradually for women and since December 2018 it increased for both men and women, reaching 66 by October 2020. See details of further planned changes to State Pension age.

State support

An individual or family is in receipt of state support if they receive one or more benefits, or are being paid Tax Credits.

Tax Credits

Working Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits are paid by HMRC. Tax Credits are ending on 5 April 2025 and will be replaced by Universal Credit (UC). ‘Tax Credit only’ customers, under State Pension age, were sent migration letters from March 2023 and are given a period of three months within which to make a claim for UC.

Other combined benefit and tax-credit customers and those over State Pension age will be sent migration notices at various stages from April 2024. Those over State Pension age, will be asked to apply to either UC or Pension Credit, depending on their circumstances.

Tenure

This is the basis on which the head of household is resident in their dwelling. Types of renting or ownership are classified as follows:

• Social renting: includes all cases where the landlord is either the local authority, or a housing association.
• Private renting: all cases where the property is rented from a private landlord, including those on a rent-free basis.

Rent-free accommodation is any provided free by an employer or by an organisation to a self-employed respondent, provided that the normal activities of the tenant are to further the cause of the organisation (e.g. Church of England clergy). Accommodation is not classed as rent-free if anyone, apart from an employer or organisation, is paying a rent or mortgage on a property on behalf of the respondent.

• Buying with a mortgage: includes local authority and housing association part-own-and-part-rent, and shared ownership arrangements.
• Owned outright: households who pay neither rent, nor any mortgage or loan used to purchase the property. These households may have other loans secured on their property for which information is collected on the FRS. However, these payments are excluded from the costs of housing.

Universal Credit

A single, usually monthly payment, administered by DWP.  Universal Credit (UC) is now the primary working-age benefit. UC replaces all the following state support: income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, income-related Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Working Tax Credit, Child Tax Credit and Housing Benefit.

Most claimants will be of working-age, though claimants can be over State Pension age if their partner is still of working-age. UC supports those on low incomes with their housing and living costs, as well as child and childcare support where appropriate. It is not just for those who are out of work; it is also for those who are working, but whose earnings are low enough to qualify.  Claimants must have capital of less than a set limit to be eligible.

UC completed its roll-out for new claims in Great Britain at the end of 2018 and is available for new claims throughout the UK. Legacy benefit claimants continued to transfer to UC during 2023 to 2024 and will do so again in 2024 to 2025. The Universal Credit Official Statistics provide the primary source of information about people and households on universal credit. Statistics on UC.

Working

All respondents whose employment status was employed or self-employed, irrespective of full-time or part-time working patterns.

Working-age

Adults (see Adult and Child) under State Pension age.