The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) pays welfare benefits to around 22.7 million people. To get welfare benefits people need to meet certain eligibility criteria and the amount of money they receive depends on their circumstances. Sometimes people tell us the wrong information or do not tell us when their circumstances change. Reporting accurate information and providing evidence may change the amount of benefit people are eligible for and in some circumstances, they may be eligible for more money.
However, we cannot calculate the correct amount unless people tell us accurately about their circumstances. This means that people are not eligible for increases in the amount of money they receive until we have the correct information.
This publication estimates how much extra money benefit claimants could be getting if they told us accurately about their circumstances. These people are already getting some money on a certain benefit but may not be getting all the money they could be eligible for on this benefit – we call this unfulfilled eligibility.
Unfulfilled eligibility is calculated as a percentage of the total amount of benefit paid by the department – expenditure. These percentages are referred to as rates throughout this publication. The proportion of benefit claims with unfulfilled eligibility is also reported.
