Guidance

Personal Independence Payment statistics: background quality and methodology report

Information about the methods and quality assurance steps used to produce the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistical release.

• From: Department for Work and Pensions
• Published: 11 February 2020
• Last updated: 15 July 2026
  Show all updates

  1. 15 July 2026

     Two new rows added under '6.2.2 Record of data revisions that have taken place', along with updated information relating to when people move to Scotland who are in receipt of PIP.

  2. 16 September 2025

     Updates have been added to sections 2.2.1 PIP in Scotland, 2.3.1 Data published on Stat Xplore

  3. 17 December 2024

     Published a revised background quality and methodology report. The latest release of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistics has been published today, 17 December 2024.

  4. 18 June 2024

     Published a revised version of the background quality and methodology report. Sections 2.1.1 (Summary of Customer Journey), 2.3.1 (Data published on Stat Xplore), 2.5 (Statistical Unit) and 11 (Glossary) have been updated. The latest release of PIP statistics was published on 18 June 2024.

  5. 22 March 2024

     Published version 4.4 of the background quality and methodology report. Information has been added to section 6.1 (Overall Accuracy,) the planned revisions section in 6.2.1 (Policy on Data Revisions), and to the table in 6.2.2 (Record of data revisions that have taken place). A new section has been added, section 8.1 (Retrospection). The latest release of PIP statistics was published on 19 March 2024.

  6. 19 December 2023

     Published version 4.3 of the background quality and methodology report. The following sections have been revised: 2.1.4 Status of PIP statistics, 2.2.1 PIP in Scotland, 2.3.1 Data published on Stat Xplore, 2.3.2 Data published in Summary Tables, 3.4.19 Count of people with DLA to PIP reassessment claims (Child and Adult) and 3.4.22 PIP Reassessment Outcome. The latest release of PIP statistics has been published today (19 December 2023).

  7. 19 September 2023

     Published version 4.2 of the background quality and methodology report. The latest release of PIP statistics was published today (19 September 2023).

  8. 27 July 2023

     Updated the second paragraph of section 2.1.2 about ‘Special Rules’ for PIP. Also updated the glossary entry for 'Special Rules for End of Life (SREL)'

  9. 14 March 2023

     Published version 4 of the background quality and methodology report. This has been updated to incorporate COVID-related policy information as historical background context. The latest release of PIP statistics was published today (14 March 2023).

  10. 13 September 2022

      Updated Personal Independence Payment statistics: background quality and methodology report to reflect changes due to Scottish Devolution.

  11. 14 December 2021

      Revised background quality and methodology report - updated to reflect Award Review statistics moving from static tables to Stat-Xplore. Information has been added to the table in section 2.2.1 'Data published on Stat Xplore' and the table in section 2.2.2 'Data published in Summary Tables'. The latest release of PIP statistics has been published today (14 December 2021).

  12. 14 September 2021

      Revised background quality and methodology report - updated to support the latest release of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistics (also published today, 14 September 2021). This revised report now gives a detailed explanation of the methodology behind the official PIP statistics and information about the quality of the underlying data.

  13. 15 December 2020

      Revised background and methodology - updated to support the latest release of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistics (also published today, 15 December 2020). New information has been added to the sections on Mandatory Reconsideration Clearances, Mandatory Reconsideration Clearance Times and Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to PIP reassessment.

  14. 29 July 2020

      Revised background and methodology - updated to reflect developments made in the last release of Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistics (published on 11 June 2020). The changes include new information about personal details, and the Average Financial Award amount in PIP claims with entitlement dataset.

  15. 11 February 2020

      First published.

Documents

PIP statistics: background quality and methodology report

Ref: Version 4.7

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Details

This background quality and methodology report gives:

• a detailed explanation of the methodology behind the official Personal Independence Payment (PIP) statistics
• information about the quality of the underlying data