Dataset: Housing Benefit claimants
Description
Housing Benefit claimant statistics are derived from the Single Housing Benefit Extract (SHBE). SHBE is compiled from monthly returns of housing benefit and council tax benefit claimants from each individual local authority. Recording and clerical errors can occur within SHBE - for this reason, no reliance should be placed on very small numbers obtained through Stat-Xplore.
The count of Housing Benefit claimants relates to claimants receiving a payment of at least 50 pence per week on the second Thursday in the month.
To find out more information about how Housing Benefit caseloads are derived please click here.
Statistical disclosure control has been applied with Stat-Xplore, which guards against the identification of an individual claimant.
Further information, including historical Housing Benefit statistics can be obtained from the DWP website
Known Issues
There are a small number of data quality issues identified within the Housing Benefit caseload statistics. Some of these are currently being investigated by statisticians at DWP – care should be taken when using statistics detailed below.
High levels of missing / unknown values affect gender breakdowns between November 2008 and February 2010, and housing type between August 2009 and October 2009. See Quality Statement sections below for each of these breakdowns for more information.
For Richmondshire local authority area and Richmond (Yorks) Parliamentary constituency area, the proportion of Housing Benefit claimants recorded as not receiving a passported benefit is significantly higher than other areas between November 2011 and February 2013. No reliance should be placed on statistics by passported benefit and by whether in employment for these areas between the specified time peiod.
Care should be taken with the change in the overall number of Housing Benefit claimants for North Norfolk local authority area between May and June 2012.
Care should be taken when using the housing type breakdown for Westminster local authority and Cities of London and Westminster Parliamentary constituency. In these locations there are significantly higher proportions of HB claimants with a missing housing type than in other areas.
Available Fields (click to open in new window for more information):