Housing Benefit Recoveries and Fraud: UK Quarterly National Statistics

Department for Work and Pensions National Statistics on Housing Benefit overpayments and fraud volumes. The data contains aggregate-level statistics received quarterly from each UK Local Authority. Note that from April 2016, the statistics no longer include fraud data.

Use Cases

• Analyze trends in benefit overpayment amounts based on quarterly aggregate data
• Monitor changes in fraud detection and recovery volumes across UK Local Authorities
• Assess the impact of policy changes, such as the cessation of fraud data reporting from April 2016

Strengths

• Data is designated as National Statistics, indicating official quality standards
• Aggregated quarterly from all UK Local Authorities, providing national coverage
• Published by the authoritative source agency, the Department for Work and Pensions

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to the source, as fraud reporting ceased in April 2016

Provenance

Source

Department for Work and Pensions

Collection Method

Aggregate level data received on a quarterly basis from each Local Authority

Time Range

Quarterly data; time range not specified in input

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-08 13:32:02.136069; freshness should be verified

Geography

United Kingdom (Local Authority level)