Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the operation of the household benefit cap relies on manual administration; and how many people in his Department work on its administration.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The benefit cap is calculated automatically as part of the UC calculation on the UC administrative system and no manual processing is involved. A small number of households (340, as of August 2025) are capped via Housing Benefit (HB). The calculations relating to these capping decisions are completed by 1.6 FTE staff in post (SIP) within the department.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what was the a) mean and b) median amount of housing support claimed by people in each local authority who were on i) Housing Benefit ii) the Housing Element of UC and iii) either Housing Benefit or the Housing Element of UC.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
I) The information requested for Housing Benefit (HB) mean amounts are available on Stat-Xplore (link below).
II) Universal Credit (UC) is a single integrated benefit made up of different elements, such as Housing. Benefit units receive one combined monthly payment, and any deductions apply to the total award, not individual elements. Breakdowns of the UC Housing Element are available at national level in the Benefit Expenditure Tables (link below). However, the underlying data is not sufficient to produce these breakdowns at a sub-national level, such as local authorities. As a result, it is not possible to robustly estimate mean or median element of UC at a local authority level.
III) Due to data quality limitations that prevent calculation of (ii), it is not possible to estimate the population receiving either HB or the housing element of UC.
Benefit Expenditure and Caseload Tables: Benefit expenditure and caseload tables 2025 - GOV.UK
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households are claiming housing benefits, either housing benefit or the housing element of Universal credit, in each Broad Market Rental Area (a) in total, (b) in the private rented sector and (c) in the social rented sector.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on the number of households receiving the Universal Credit (UC) Housing Element in the Private Rented Sector by Broad Rental Market Area (BRMA) is available on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/).
Information on Housing Benefit (HB) caseload is available on Stat-Xplore disaggregated by Local Authority, but not by BRMA.
Housing support for social rented sector households claiming either Housing Benefit or the housing element of Universal Credit is not determined within BRMAs. BRMAs only apply to housing support in the private rented sector.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many people are claiming (a) housing benefit and (b) the housing element of universal credit in each broad rental market area (BRMA) and what was the average amount claimed in each BRMA in 2025.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Information on the number of households receiving the UC Housing Element in the Private Rented Sector by Broad Rental Market Area is available on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/).
Providing the rest of the information requested would incur disproportionate cost.
Information on HB caseload and average award is available on Stat-Xplore (https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/) disaggregated by Local Authority, but not BRMA.
Breakdowns of the UC Housing Element and Housing Benefit are available at national level in the Benefit Caseload and Expenditure Tables (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/benefit-expenditure-and-caseload-tables-2025).
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to Question 100498, how many households on Housing Benefit and Universal Credit who have flowed off the benefit cap are in the Other outcome category by reason of receiving an exempting benefit during the quarter to (a) August 2025, (b) May 2025, (c) February 2025 and (d) November 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes Official Statistics on the number of households in Great Britain on Housing Benefit (HB) or Universal Credit (UC) that have flowed off the benefit cap, including outcome at off-flow, in the HB Cumulative Caseload dataset and the UC Cumulative Caseload dataset, which are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore, with monthly off-flows data currently available to July 2025.
The HB statistics do have an Outcome at off-flow category for ‘Household receiving other exempt benefit (Employment Support Allowance support group / Disability Living Allowance / Industrial Injuries / Personal Independent Payment).’
However, statistics on the number of exempting benefit outcomes for UC are included in the Outcome at off-flow category of ‘Other outcome’, and to produce a further breakdown of this group would incur disproportionate cost.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what funding has been allocated to programmes relating to the UKs relationship with Europe in the (a) 2026-7, (b) 2028-9 and (c) 2029-30 financial years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department is currently undertaking its internal business planning process, through which it will set programme budgets ahead of the new financial year. Details on DWP budgets are to be published in the explanatory memo for the 2026/27 Main Estimate.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households left the benefit cap by reason of being in receipt of an exempting benefit and where the exempting benefit was receiving Universal Credit with limited capability for work and work-related activity during each of the following periods: the quarter to August 2025, the quarter to May 2025, the quarter to February 2025 and the quarter to November 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes Official Statistics on the number of households in Great Britain on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit that have flowed off the benefit cap, including outcome at off-flow, which are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore and are currently available up to the quarter to August 2025.
Statistics on the exempting benefit outcomes above are grouped in the ‘Other outcome’ category above. The Department does not produce statistics breaking down this category into individual exempting benefits and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households left the benefit cap by reason of being in receipt of an exempting benefit and where the exempting benefit was PIP during each of the following periods: the quarter to August 2025, the quarter to May 2025, the quarter to February 2025 and the quarter to November 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes Official Statistics on the number of households in Great Britain on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit that have flowed off the benefit cap, including outcome at off-flow, which are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore and are currently available up to the quarter to August 2025.
Statistics on the exempting benefit outcomes above are grouped in the ‘Other outcome’ category above. The Department does not produce statistics breaking down this category into individual exempting benefits and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many households left the benefit cap by reason of being in receipt of an exempting benefit during each of the following periods: the quarter to August 2025, the quarter to May 2025, the quarter to February 2025 and the quarter to November 2024.
Answered by Stephen Timms - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department publishes Official Statistics on the number of households in Great Britain on Housing Benefit or Universal Credit that have flowed off the benefit cap, including outcome at off-flow, which are published quarterly on Stat-Xplore and are currently available up to the quarter to August 2025.
Statistics on the exempting benefit outcomes above are grouped in the ‘Other outcome’ category above. The Department does not produce statistics breaking down this category into individual exempting benefits and to do so would incur disproportionate cost.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access general guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Neil O'Brien (Conservative - Harborough, Oadby and Wigston)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what proportion of departmental staff in each grade were rated in the top performance category in the last year.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
DWP’s performance management policy utilises a team-based approach. The policy requires the performance of every employee to be robustly assessed on an ongoing basis. However, the approach does not involve employees below the Senior Civil Service being assigned a performance rating. Consequently, we are unable to provide data on employees rated in a top performance category.
For Senior Civil Servants (SCS) there are four performance ratings available within the Performance management framework for the Senior Civil Service: Exceeding, High Performing, Achieving and Partially Met. In 2024-25, the DWP Pay Committee agreed to use three of the four performance ratings available for SCS1 and SCS2s, and the ‘top’ performers were recorded as high performing. Exceeding was used for SCS3s / Director Generals (DGs), following instruction from the Senior Leadership Committee for Director General performance management which set specific criteria for the assessment of DGs to improve consistency between departments. The number and proportion of SCS in each grade rated in the top performance categories for 2024-25 was as follows:
Rating | SCS1 | SCS2 | SCS3 | |||
| Number | % | Number | % | Number | % |
Exceeding | 0 | 0% | 0 | 0% | <30 | --% |
High Performing | 67 | 28% | <30 | --% | <30 | --% |