We are pleased to announce the release of seven individual benefit datasets from DWP covering the following benefits:

  • Attendance Allowance
  • Disability Living Allowance
  • Incapacity Benefit/Severe Disablement Allowance
  • Income Support
  • Jobseeker’s Allowance
  • Pension Credit
  • State Pension

Todays launch follows on from the release in February 2005 of the four client group datasets (working age clients, their children and families, and pension age clients).

To access the data use either the wizard or advanced query and go to the DWP benefits theme. Further background information is available about the new data sets at all stages of a query - look for the information panel at the bottom of each page.


DWP data available on Nomis

All the data are taken from a 5% sample of cases which is grossed up to provide final totals. Two types of data are available:

  1. Client group data sets (released Feb 2005). The 5% sample is drawn by selecting cases corresponding to a particular range of National Insurance numbers. The same range is used for each benefit so it is possible to identify individuals claiming more than one benefit. This is the basis of the four client group datasets. In these each claimant appears once only, even though some claim more than one benefit, allowing information to be provided on the combination of benefits claimed.

  2. Individual benefit datasets. If counts of claimants of particular benefits are required then the individual benefit datasets should be used.

Data are provided down to local authority and parliamentary constituency level. Figures are updated quarterly with time series back, in some cases, to 1995.

An important difference exists in the treatment of Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) claimants between the working age client group dataset and the JSA individual benefit dataset. Data in the JSA individual benefit dataset has been adjusted to match the claimant count, produced by ONS, whereas this adjustment has not been made to the Client Group data. Consequently, the two datasets give slightly different counts of JSA claimants.


Usage guidelines

As the data are based on a 5% sample, figures will be rounded to the nearest 100 in all Nomis outputs, and those below 50 will be suppressed as statistically unreliable. Figures below 500 are subject to a proportionally large degree of sampling variation and should be used with caution.

Although you can use a large number of options to select subsets of cases (e.g. age, duration, benefit type), in practice this is not recommended because cells are likely to contain values below 50 which are consequently suppressed. This is particularly likely when data are requested at parliamentary constituency or local authority level.


Further information