This annual statistical release provides a count of claimants receiving one or more DWP working age benefits, broken down by nationality.

This is a quarterly National Statistics release of the main DWP-administered benefits via Stat-Xplore or supplementary tables where appropriate.

August 2022 release of IIDB statistics

Some anomalies in the “Assessments in Payment” dataset have been identified within the latest Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefit (IIDB) release – a data deficiency is causing issues with the number of “unknown” cases for average values in the latest data. As a result, the measure “Weekly Amount (mean)” and field “Average weekly amount (bands)” on https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/login.xhtml" class="govuk-link">Stat-Xplore (released on 16 August 2022) will be temporarily suspended.

The issue is currently being investigated and we will update users when new figures are released. The remainder of IIDB statistics on Stat-Xplore have not been impacted and will remain available.

Impact of Scottish devolution: changes to the presentation of statistics

The https://www.gov.scot/publications/responsibility-for-benefits-overview/" class="govuk-link">devolution of social security benefits to the Scottish Government is beginning to impact DWP statistics, where benefit administration is moving from DWP to the Scottish Government. As this change takes place, for a transitional period, Social Security Scotland will administer new claims and DWP will continue to administer existing claims under an agency agreement. DWP will no longer hold a complete count of the number of claimants across Great Britain.

Our DWP benefit statistics statistical summaries will now focus on DLA and PIP claims where policy ownership has been retained by DWP. Figures, charts and narratives will primarily reflect England, Wales and any unknown or abroad claims. The residual count of DLA claims in Scotland will be provided for information only.

To reflect these changes, on Stat-Xplore we have added a new split to DLA geography fields to provide breakdowns based on policy ownership. Users of these statistics should make data selections based on these policy ownership lines.

Statistics showing the number of applications and awards to the new Child Disability Payment have been released by Scottish Government. Similar statistics for Adult Disability Payment covering its initial roll out phase are also available.

Please refer to our background information note for more information on Scottish devolution.

Housing Benefit (HB) dataset: revision to previously published figures

We have introduced methodological changes in how some of our HB statistics are categorised, and some outcomes have changed in our published statistics.

Please note, at August 2022 changes were made to the following fields, with new revised data presented from April 2018:

• Passported Benefit Status
• Employment Status
• Removal of Spare Room Subsidy – Spare Room Subsidy Indicator
• Removal of Spare Room Subsidy – Number of Spare Rooms
• Removal of Spare Room Subsidy – Weekly Spare Room Reduction Amount bands
• Age

• Client Type

• Gender

Following a policy change, we recently discovered that the passporting indicator on Housing Benefit statistics had been incorrectly recording outcomes for a section of claimants who receive Housing Benefit and Universal Credit at the same time. The correct outcome should have been “Passported: In receipt of Universal Credit.”

We have now fixed this issue, but in doing so, other v

This is a quarterly National Statistics release of the main DWP-administered benefits via Stat-Xplore or supplementary tables where appropriate.

Scottish devolution: changes to the presentation of DWP statistics

The https://www.gov.scot/publications/responsibility-for-benefits-overview/" class="govuk-link">devolution of social security benefits to the Scottish Government is now having an impact DWP statistics.

On Stat-Xplore, we added a split to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) geography fields to provide breakdowns based on policy ownership. Users of these statistics should make data selections based on these policy ownership lines.

Statistics showing the number of applications and awards to the new Child Disability Payment have been released by the Scottish government. Similar statistics for Adult Disability Payment covering its initial roll out phase are also available.

Please refer to our background information note for more information on presentational changes we have made to our statistics in response to Scottish devolution.

Housing Benefit: Gloucester City Council

As a result of a criminal cyber-attack, Gloucester City Council is unable to supply DWP with Housing Benefit (HB) data until further notice. This has affected Housing Benefit statistics from December 2021. Data problems are unlikely to be fixed for the foreseeable future. Until then, HB statistics that cover Gloucester will be derived from earlier data using the same approach we previously adopted for Hackney Borough Council.

Please refer to the background information note for more information on how we have managed these interruptions and the impacts to our statistics.

State Pension

During 2019, a new DWP computer system called “Get Your State Pension” (GYSP) came online to handle State Pension claims. The GYSP system is now handling a sizeable proportion of new claims.

We are not yet able to include GYSP system data in our published statistics for State Pension. The number of GYSP cases are too high to allow us to continue to publish State Pension data on Stat-Xplore. In the short term, we will provide GYSP estimates based on payment systems data. As a temporary measure, State Pension statistics will be published via data tables only. The latest release contains State Pensions estimates for the quarters to November 2022.

A biannual release of supplementary tables to show State Pension deferment increments and proportions of beneficiaries receiving a full amount has been suspended. This release is normally based on a 5% sample of the legacy computer system. Given the absence of GYSP data, the figures are affected by the same issues as described above. The latest available time period for these figures remains September 2020.

We are developing new statistical datasets to properly represent both computer systems. Once we have quality assured the new data it will be published on Stat-Xplore, including a refresh of historical data using the best data available.

For more information, see the background information note.

More information

A statistical summary document is published every six months in February and August each year. It contains a high-level summary of the latest National Statistics on DWP benefits. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics

These summary tables show data on the nationality of DWP working age benefit claimants at the point of NINo registration by:

• time series from February 2010 to February 2017
• benefit type
• world area and nationality
• region and local authority

These data tables show the number of benefit claimants in London for the following out of work benefit categories:

• Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Employment and Support Allowance
• Income Support
• other income-related benefits

The main purpose of this data is to provide detailed information to help develop operational plans to tackle worklessness and deprivation.

These Alternative Claimant Count statistics measure the number of people claiming unemployment related benefits by modelling what the count would have been if Universal Credit had been in place since 2013.

Final release

This is the final release of this series. The Alternative Claimant Count (ACC) statistics have always been presented as an interim series to complement the ONS Claimant Count. Four years after they were first published and now that the majority of unemployment-related benefit claimants (89%) have migrated to Universal Credit or new-style Jobseeker’s Allowance, the series now has marginal value as trends have converged to the ONS Claimant Count. The ONS Claimant Count, released monthly, provides a timelier and more frequent series (available at: https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/" class="govuk-link">Nomisweb.co.uk). The historic ACC statistics will continue to be available on the GOV.UK website in the collection of ACC statistics.