Dataset: People on Universal Credit
Description
Postcode geography consists of two levels, area and district.
Postcode areas are formed from the first part of a postcode and are always either one or two letters long e.g. in the postcode S3 7UF, S is the postcode area. While if the postcode is NR32 1AB, then NR is the postcode area.
Postcode districts are formed from first two parts of a postcode the second part of a postcode and include the postcode area plus the following digits e.g. S3 is the postcode district for S3 7UF and NR32 is the postcode district for NR32 1AB.
Postcode areas and districts are built up from the full postcode of a claimant. Upon starting the claim process the full postcode is recorded and kept throughout the lifetime of the claim. It is never used in any dataset, where only the district part built from the postcode is used. This is for data protection purposes.
Classification
Applicable to: All claimants
Total number of categories (excluding Unknown / Missing):
We classify unknown postcode areas as ZZ and unknown postcode districts as ZZ99.
Quality Statement
Postcode data is gathered from the Customer Information System (CIS) using claimants' National Insurance numbers. To protect the identity of claimants, only the postcode district is included in data for statistical processing, and not the full postcode.
The postcode classification does include some postcode districts which are "non-geographic locations". Non-geographic postcodes can either be special postcodes assigned to some large users of the postal service or PO Boxes that lie within a (pseudo) postcode district that does not form a discrete part of a post town. These will all have been assigned a grid reference, usually the local Royal Mail sorting office.