Guidance

Uses and users: DWP benefits statistical summary

Updated 28 November 2024

1. Introduction

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) publish a statistical summary document on a 6-monthly basis and related data quarterly. It is used for the release of a wide range of DWP statistics.

The DWP statistical summary brings together key National Statistics on DWP administered benefits, including DWP benefit combinations. To provide a more complete picture of DWP responsibility, statistics on Housing Benefit (administered by local authorities) and Universal Credit are also included in the collection.

The DWP benefits statistics collection publishes data quarterly, on the following benefits:

• Attendance Allowance (AA)
• Bereavement benefits (BB)
• Carer’s Allowance (CA)
• Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
• Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Housing Benefit (HB)
• Incapacity Benefit (IB)
• Income Support (IS)
• Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
• Pension Credit (PC)
• Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA)
• State Pension (SP)
• Widow’s Benefit (WB)

Each February and August, a summary document is also published, containing a high level summary of the latest National Statistics for the benefits listed above, and where relevant messages about:

• Personal Independence Payment (PIP)
• Universal Credit (UC)
• DWP benefit combinations

Alongside the statistical summary, there are a large number of tables which enable the user to delve in to the detail. These are provided to the user as:

• Stat-Xplore – an online tool that allows the creation and download of customised statistical tables, and data visualisations through interactive charts - there is a Stat-Xplore user guide to help users

• old DWP datasets via NOMIS, however these stopped being updated in 2019 – related Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures are available on NOMIS
• separate detailed tables on Housing Benefit flows, Bereavement Support Payment, Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit, Maternity Allowance and State Pension

For the rest of this document, the DWP benefits statistics should be taken to include all the products and tables outlined above.

1.1 Known Uses of DWP benefit statistics

The summary (and underlying datasets) are used by DWP for:

• providing the evidence base for assessing the potential effect of policy options
• monitoring current DWP policy and evaluating recent changes
• monitoring the effect on the benefit system of the economic cycle
• answering Parliamentary Questions (PQs) and Freedom of Information (FOI) requests
• forecasting benefit expenditure (in conjunction with expenditure statistics)
• monitoring the performance of LAs as they process Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit claims on behalf of the department
• producing other statistical series (for example, Children in Out-of-work Benefit Households, Neighbourhood statistics, Disadvantage Indicators)

Outside DWP, the internet based publication mechanism for the Summary means that we cannot understand all the varied uses of these numbers. However, through correspondence with stakeholders and use of Google Analytics we do know that the Summary (and underlying datasets) are used for:

• providing general information on the benefit system in Great Britain
• measuring government targets relating to DWP
• producing indices of deprivation in England, Wales and Scotland
• improving population estimates, especially at a small area level
• academic research
• policy development and evaluation by local authorities and other welfare and pensions stakeholders and providers
• administration by other government departments such as Department for Education and Ministry of Justice
• for information by devolved governments

2. Analysis of users

We periodically conduct an analysis of the users of our main benefit statistics through Google Analytics and through monitoring the types of emails we receive from users. There are two ways to access the Benefits data; via the statistical summary and attached data table and via Stat-Xplore.

Statistical summary

Some information on users of the statistical summary and other GOV.UK pages we publish on can be found using Google Analytics:

• analysis of the Service Provider dimension shows some groups of users are those from other government departments, local authorities and universities
• analysis of the Source dimension shows that as well as entering the summary from a search engine or directly through typing the web address, users also enter from Facebook, Stat-Xplore and Civil Service Jobs

Stat-Xplore

We are not currently able to see which users are accessing which datasets on Stat-Xplore but we are happy to hear from users about their experience of Stat-Xplore.

The team responsible for Stat-Xplore are developing methods to analyse the Stat-Xplore user logs in order to understand more about users’ behavourial patterns, while maintaining high standards of security and privacy. This process is early in the development phase but we anticipate when it is completed we will have access to more information about the users of the DWP benefit statistics data.

2.1 Valid Uses of DWP statistical summary

The summary can be used for:

• obtaining the definitive numbers of people claiming DWP benefits
• exploring the characteristics of those claiming benefits
• evaluating DWP programmes and benefits. However, users should be aware that administrative changes in the benefit system can and do affect the published numbers. Therefore, users should read footnotes carefully.

However, the numbers should not be used for:

• statistics on unemployment – here are a number of measures of unemployment, all of which are published by the Office for National Statistics. However, DWP statistics can provide additional details and context to support the main labour market statistics
• calculation of expenditure on benefits (by multiplication of caseloads and averages)

2.2 Areas of unmet user need

Customers (both within DWP and externally) sometimes request the following:

• more timely release of statistics. National Statistics are released around 6 months after the reference period. This is to allow for late notification of claims and processing time. This is called retrospection.
• statistics relating to DWP process. For example, sometimes information on the number of changes of circumstances is requested. There is no readily available quality assured dataset regarding DWP administrative processing

2.3 How to comment and get involved

DWP would like to hear your views on our statistical publications. If you use any of our statistics publications, we would be interested in hearing what you use them for and how well they meet your requirements. Please email DWP at [email protected] or complete the ongoing questionnaire

Updates to the DWP benefits statistics are published on the statistics collection page and in the “Welfare and Benefits” community on StatsUserNet.

In addition to these, DWP use a number of routes to seek user views. For example:

• National Statistics consultations are run for large proposed changes – or example, in 2005 a consultation was held to change the headline data source for benefit statistics
• DWP publish experimental statistics for new series, whilst seeking user views to inform a full National Statistics release
• new statistics are developed in conjunction with groups of stakeholders to help understand and quality assure output
• monitor the usage of the GOV.UK website relating to DWP
• monitor ad hoc analysis requests

Ad hoc comments are also welcome. Please provide comments to: [email protected]

For all other enquiries please contact the appropriate person using the list of contacts for DWP statistics list.