Social Security Benefits: Take-up

(asked on 9th October 2015) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people in the UK are not claiming benefits they are entitled to; and what estimate he has made of the annual value of such unclaimed benefits.


Answered by
Priti Patel Portrait
Priti Patel
This question was answered on 14th October 2015

On 25th June 2015 the Department for Work and Pensions published the report “Income-related benefits: Estimates of take-up in 2013/14 (experimental)”. The full report can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/income-related-benefits-estimates-of-take-up-financial-year-201314

For Great Britain, the following estimates are available for 2013/14:

  • Income Support, and Employment and Support Allowance: between 510,000 and 650,000 benefit units are estimated as not claiming Income Support, and Employment and Support Allowance, an unclaimed caseload proportion of 19% to 23%, and estimated to be valued between £2.43 billion and £3.25 billion unclaimed;
  • Pension Credit: between 1.24 million and 1.43 million benefit units are estimated as not claiming Pension Credit to which they are entitled, an unclaimed caseload proportion of 36% to 39%, and estimated to be valued between £2.48 billion and £3.26 billion unclaimed;
  • Housing Benefit: between 1.11 million and 1.3 million benefit units are estimated as not claiming Housing Benefit, an unclaimed proportion of 18% to 21%, and estimated to be valued between £3.16 billion and £4.1 billion unclaimed; and
  • Jobseeker's Allowance: between 650,000 and 820,000 are estimated as not claiming Jobseeker’s, an unclaimed proportion of 39% to 45%, and estimated to be valued between £1.99 billion and £2.62 billion unclaimed.
Reticulating Splines