Official Statistics

ESA underpayments: progress on checking, Oct 2018, Feb 2019, May 2019

Progress on checking cases potentially affected by underpayments of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) on conversion from previous incapacity benefits.

Documents

October 2018: ESA underpayments: forecast numbers affected, forecast expenditure and progress on checking

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Details

The latest release of these statistics can be found in the ESA underpayments collection.

The release (dated May 2019) follows previous publications on ESA underpayments in October 2018 and February 2019.

This publication presents an update, from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) management information as at 12 May 2019, of progress on checking cases potentially affected by underpayments of ESA on conversion from previous incapacity benefits.

The first 2 publications (October 2018 and February 2019) were released as DWP research and analysis. The latest publication is an Official Statistics release.

Publication schedule

The publication schedule has been amended. We originally committed to providing quarterly updates linked to the dates of DWP parliamentary questions for oral answer (DWP Oral PQs). Following changes in the dates of Oral PQs, we will now be publishing on fixed dates throughout the year. This ensures the specific release dates are known ahead of publication.

The next publication will be on 18 July 2019, followed by updates on:

  • 17 October 2019
  • 16 January 2020

Updates to this page

Published 17 October 2018
Last updated 18 July 2019 + show all updates
  1. Updated the figures for the 'number of cases completed the reassessment journey without payment of arrears' and the 'number of arrears payments made to qualifying cases' in table 2 of the February 2019 publication and table 1 of the May publication.

  2. Published new release of ESA underpayments information, following previous publications in October 2018 and February 2019.

  3. Published a revised publication schedule for releases of this information. The next publication will be on 16 May 2019, followed by publications on 18 July 2019, 17 October 2019 and 16 January 2020.

  4. This release follows a previous one on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) underpayments, published on 17 October 2018. It provides an update of the number of cases estimated to be affected by underpayments of ESA on conversion from other incapacity benefits. It also presents an update of progress on checking potentially affected cases as at 11 February 2019.

  5. Note added to the release that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will be contacting all those identified as potentially impacted to get the information needed to look again at Employment and Support Allowance claims. DWP has already started to contact customers and will contact everyone affected by December 2019. Note, no changes have been made to the data or other information in the release.

  6. Published ad hoc 'ESA underpayments: forecast numbers affected, forecast expenditure and progress on checking'.

  7. First published.

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