Collection

Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up

Estimates of the take-up of the main income-related benefits by caseload and expenditure in Great Britain.

Following the statistics being suspended for financial year ending (FYE) 2021, the statistics for FYE 2022 were published on Thursday 26 October 2023.

The FYE 2022 publication only focuses on pension age income related benefits – Pension Credit and Housing Benefit. There is a specific challenge in creating a UC take-up measure and interpreting and communicating its results within the scope of the Code of Practice for Statistics. We are therefore unable to estimate UC take-up rates at present.

A few small errors were identified in the historical data tables. They have been corrected in the data tables for this release and the FYE 2020 release, previous data tables should not be used.

Changes to the latest release of statistics

The latest release differs to previous years statistics in the following ways.

Pension Credit receipts data is now based on a single data source

The Quarterly Statistical Enquiry (QSE) dataset was previously used to adjust the receipts data for Pension Credit to exclude any non-private households. The Work and Pensions Longitudinal Study (WPLS) now includes variables that allow for this exclusion to be done exclusively on the WPLS dataset, and so the QSE dataset is no longer used for the receipts data from FYE 2022 onwards. This change has a minimal impact on the receipts data and allows for a more accurate approach to calculate receipts data.

Removal of pipeline variables from the Family Resources Survey (FRS)

In previous years, it was assumed that if a benefit unit reports they are awaiting an outcome of a claim, and the Policy simulation Model (PSM) models them as entitled, it is likely that they would have gone on to receive the benefit and were categorised as entitled recipients. From FYE 2022, the FRS no longer collects information on those awaiting an outcome of a claim due to a small number of respondents. Therefore, the take-up estimates for FYE 2022 no longer include those awaiting an outcome of a claim. This has no effect on the overall results.

Removal of Pension Credit Savings Credit breakdown tables

With the abolition of Savings Credit for new pensioners from April 2016, and the reducing number of Savings Credit only cases in the eligible population, we are no longer able to estimate Savings Credit breakdowns with a sufficient level of confidence. Therefore, from FYE 2022 onwards, Savings Credit breakdowns will not be included in the data tables. Historic Savings Credit breakdowns can be found in previous releases.

Find future publication dates in our statistics release calendar and other DWP statistics on the Statistics at DWP page.

If you have any queries about this re-instatement, please contact irb.takeup@dwp.gov.uk

Note, our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

Latest release

Release strategy

This release strategy acts as the formal notice of changes to any future releases of the income-related benefits: estimates of take-up publication.

The strategy describes the potential release of new statistics within the publication and announces any other developments for future publications.

The income-related benefits: estimates of take-up release strategy is not a static document; it will be updated as plans develop, to provide users with details of latest developments.

Previous releases

There are older releases of these statistics on the National Archives website.

Background information and guidance

These statistics are designed to give an estimate of the take-up of benefits within the entitled population. They aim to provide an indication of whether and to what extent the different benefits are taken up by different groups.

The statistics can be used to

  • increase awareness of take-up for particular benefits
  • inform government policies
  • measure the effect of take-up initiatives

Additional details of how the statistics are commonly used can be found in the usage of income-related benefits report on the National Archives website.

Read a guide to sources of data on earnings and income as well as further information on income and earning statistics, both published by the Office for National Statistics.

Published 18 June 2013
Last updated 26 October 2023 + show all updates
  1. Added a link to the latest release of statistics: 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year ending 2022'.

  2. Added a note to the page about the next release of income-related benefits statistics. The next release will be published on 26 October 2023.

  3. Replaced 'Suspension of the 2020 to 2021 estimates' with information about the 'Re-instatement of the 2021 to 2022 estimates'.

  4. Added a note to the page about the suspension of the estimates for the financial year 2020 to 2021.

  5. Added a link to the latest release of statistics: 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2019 to 2020'.

  6. Added a statistical notice to this collection. The notice has information about a change to the next release of Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up official statistics, due to be released on 24 February 2022.

  7. Added a link to the latest release of these statistics 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2018 to 2019'.

  8. Added the latest release of these statistics 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2017 to 2018'.

  9. Added latest statistics for 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: financial year 2016 to 2017'.

  10. Added 'Changes in the income-related benefits: estimates of take-up 2016 to 2017: statistical notice' to the background information and guidance documents.

  11. Added latest stats for Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up for financial year 2015/16.

  12. Added 'Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up: statistical notice' to related documents.

  13. Added latest stats for Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up for financial year 2014/15.

  14. Added latest stats for Income-related benefits: estimates of take-up for financial year 2013/14.

  15. Amended the date of the next release which is now provisionally due to be published in May or June 2015. This has been changed to allow time to quality assure changes to methodology (the methods used to produce the statistics).

  16. Published details of next scheduled release for these statistics (January to February 2015).

  17. First published.