Universal Credit statistics: revision to number of people on Universal Credit and restoration of data on durations
Published 19 February 2019
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-credit-statistics-revision-to-number-of-people-on-universal-credit-and-restoration-of-data-on-durations/universal-credit-statistics-revision-to-number-of-people-on-universal-credit-and-restoration-of-data-on-durations
This statistical notice advises users of a revision to the people on Universal Credit figures for the period January 2016 to December 2018, alongside the restoration of data on the durations of time spent by individuals on Universal Credit.
The previously published information on durations was removed from the Universal Credit statistics in April 2018 following identification of an issue with these figures. Data on durations was not published between April 2018 and January 2019.
We have identified that the issue was caused by a problem in how claims by individuals with multiple spells on Universal Credit were selected for inclusion in our statistics. This caused individuals to appear as if they had been one long claim that started at the time of their original claim, rather than multiple distinct periods of claiming Universal Credit. This issue has now been resolved.
The main issue caused by this in the data published was inaccuracy of durations for time on Universal Credit. These breakdowns were removed from Stat-Xplore while this problem was investigated and are now available again.
There were also knock-on effects on other aspects of the data. In particular, we identified that some individuals were recorded as being on Universal Credit for short periods before or after their genuine claim start and end dates, due to the use of incorrect dates. As we have corrected this, the number of People on Universal Credit between 8 January 2016 and 13 December 2018 has been revised downwards. The number removed increases over time, with 37,000 individuals (2.4%) removed for December 2018 overall.
It is important to note that the proportion of individuals removed varies across the country. Differences can be greater than 5% when looking at small geographies.
Figure 1: Number of people on Universal Credit
Figure 2: Percentage change in people on Universal Credit
Additionally, as an individual’s first claim was being used to select the conditionality regime that they were on, a small amount of these have been revised as a result of now selecting the correct claims. In all, less than 0.1% of records have changed from the previously published conditionality regime. Part of this is due to the correction necessitating a full run of the entire People on Universal Credit back series, therefore some proportion of these changes will be due to retrospection in the data over time.
The issue was corrected in the 19 February 2019 Universal Credit official experimental statistics publication. Users are not recommended to use previously published Universal Credit Official Statistics for people on Universal Credit made between 8 January 2016 and 13 December 2018.
Issued by: Data and Analytics, Digital Group, Department for Work and Pensions
Read the Universal Credit statistics