Impact Of integrating benefit administrative data on NI poverty statistics

Published 26 March 2026

Important Notice

Important Notice: Changes to Poverty and Income Inequality Statistics

The most recent NI Poverty and Income Inequality Report includes substantial methodological updates that affect how poverty and income statistics are produced for Northern Ireland. This document provides an overview of the impact of integrating benefit administrative data on relative poverty rates for NI.

What has changed?

Poverty and Income Inequality statistics in Northern Ireland and across the United Kingdom (UK) are based on data from the Family Resources Survey (FRS). The publication is now using an updated methodology which replaces survey responses relating to major state benefits and tax credits, with administrative data. The new methodology applies to the most recent year 2024/25, and revised estimates have also been produced for 2021/22 to 2023/24.

Reclassification to Official Statistics in Development

In order to reflect the evolving nature of the modernised FRS methodology, we have chosen to temporarily suspend the accredited official statistics designation for our poverty and income publications. Instead, we will release these publications as Official Statistics in Development and include higher level analysis only. This is a transparent signal to our users that while these figures remain valuable, the ongoing updates to data linkage, grossing and the absolute poverty measure mean they should be interpreted with extra caution, particularly for long term comparisons.

Introduction

Revised methodology

The introduction of administrative data creates a break in the time series from 2021/22 onwards (on the relevant charts below, we have shown this break in the series with a dotted line). This means:

Key measures, including the estimated number and proportion of people in poverty, have changed for all affected years.
Figures before and after the break in the time series should not be directly compared.
In general, the inclusion of administrative benefit data leads to higher recorded incomes and therefore lower poverty rates than previously published estimates.

The changes between previously published figures and administrative linked data reflect better measurement, not a change in peoples’ circumstances.

Impact of integrating benefit administrative data on NI poverty statistics

This document provides an overview of the impact of integrating benefit administrative data on relative poverty rates for NI. There is no comparison available for 2024/25 as only administrative linked data was produced for that year. In summary, impacts of linking survey and administrative data on key estimates are:

Higher median weekly household income, particularly for lower income households.
Lower numbers in relative poverty for all groups.
In general, the introduction of administrative data reduces relative poverty both Before Housing Costs (BHC) and After Housing Costs (AHC) in NI for all individuals by 3 to 4 percentage points.

It should be noted that the changes between previously published figures and administrative linked data reflect better measurement, not a change in peoples’ circumstances. The impact is also more volatile for population groups with a smaller sample size.

Absolute poverty measures are impacted by both the integration of administrative data (reducing numbers in absolute poverty) and the change to the anchor year to 2024/25 (increasing the numbers in absolute poverty). These changes work in opposite directions and result in a smaller impact to absolute poverty for the revised years (2021/22 to 2023/24).

Whole Population in Poverty

Figure 1 Percentage of all individuals in relative poverty, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Figure 1 shows that for each year between 2021/22 and 2023/24, linking the FRS to benefit administrative data has resulted in a lower percentage of individuals in relative poverty. In general, the difference is between 3 and 4 percentage points.

Children in Poverty

Figure 2 Percentage of children in relative poverty, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Figure 2 shows that for each year between 2021/22 and 2023/24, linking to administrative data has resulted in a lower percentage of children in relative poverty. In general, the difference for children is more varied and larger, ranging from 2 to 6 percentage points.

Working-Age Adults in Poverty

Figure 3 Percentage of working-age adults in relative poverty, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Figure 3 shows that for each year between 2021/22 and 2023/24, linking to administrative data has resulted in a lower percentage of working age adults in relative poverty. In general, the difference for working age adults is 3 percentage points.

Pensioners in Poverty

Figure 4 Percentage of pensioners in relative poverty, 2013/14 to 2024/25

Figure 4 shows that for each year between 2021/22 and 2023/24, linking to administrative data has resulted in a lower percentage of pensioners in relative poverty. In general, the difference for pensioners is larger and more varied ranging from 3 to 6 percentage points.

Further information

Why are these changes happening?

For many years the FRS has underreported benefit receipt, due to, respondents not reporting that they receive a benefit, respondents understating the amount of benefit received, and survey sampling not fully capturing all benefit recipients. This undercount means household income has been consistently understated, especially for lower income households. The integration of administrative data will reduce income underreporting leading to an improvement in the quality, coherence and completeness of income-based poverty statistics.

Updating the absolute poverty measure

Given the structural break, it has been necessary to review the reference year for the absolute poverty measure. The absolute reference year has changed to be 2024/25 for the years where administrative data linking has been applied, ensuring the measure can be calculated on a consistent methodological basis. This change will impact the number of people identified as living in absolute poverty.

Future changes

Further changes are due to be implemented on FRS data in future years, including replacing survey reported earnings with administrative data, and updating the way the statistics are scaled to population totals (known as grossing). While these developments represent essential modernisation, the scale and ongoing nature of the changes introduce uncertainty, and this transition will last for a number of years.