Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government why the Department for Work and Pensions report of the Household Below Average Income Statistics was over 100 pages in length in previous years and this year is 13 pages in length; and why this year's report contains details published in Excel tables only.

The change in publication format for the 2014/15 Households Below Average Income (HBAI) National Statistics release was made to bring this report into line with the new standard DWP Statistics template, with the aim of giving more focussed and accessible publications, without sacrificing the breadth of statistical analysis previously published.

No information has been lost from this publication, rather this restructuring is intended to allow the lay user to better understand these important statistics.

This approach is in line with the UK Statistics Authority’s “Better Statistics, Better Decisions” strategy and the specific change in format for HBAI was trailed in a Statistical Notice released in April 2016.