Family Resources Survey
Source: gov.uk (2025-03-27)

An annual report that provides facts and figures about the incomes and living circumstances of households and families in the UK.

The Family Resources Survey (FRS) is a continuous household survey which collects information on a representative sample of private households in the United Kingdom. These annual publications provide statistics and commentary on:
- income from all sources
- housing tenure
- caring needs and responsibilities
- disability
- pension participation
- savings and investment
- self employment
- household food security
- childcare
Changes to the latest release

Review of material deprivation measures

In December 2021, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) commissioned a review of FRS material deprivation questions. The review was conducted by the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). The review recommended a pilot of a short-list of 35 items and activities. Full details of the test questions and changes to methodology are given in Section 4 of the published review (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65f95cd1ed6b8d001186163b/material-deprivation-measures-final-report.pdf).

Following the pilot in 2022 to 2023, the FRS questionnaire introduced 29 updated questions in 2023 to 2024 for the whole of the survey year. Around 75% of the sample were asked these questions, with the remaining 25% being asked the old questions. The division of updated versus old was made at random. Data from both the updated and old questions is released as part of the FRS 2023 to 2024 dataset.

Cost of Living Support Schemes 2023 to 2024

During 2022 to 2023 the government announced and implemented additional support to families with several cost of living support schemes (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-living-support/cost-of-living-support-factsheet-26-may-2022), depending on peoples’ circumstances.

FRS 2023 to 2024 continues to include these payments as part of the income variables on the FRS dataset, accordingly to eligibility and payment dates. Therefore, any FRS published table using variables that include the calculation of benefit unit and household income will continue to reflect the cost of living payments (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-living-support/cost-of-living-support-factsheet-26-may-2022) that the person or their household would have received.

FRS 2023 to 2024 goes beyond the 2022 to 2023 results and captures income received by those eligible for Core Group 2 of the Warm Home Discount scheme. As such this income is also included in any associated household income variables. This does not include income from those who are only in receipt of tax credits.

Correction to Cost of Living support schemes 2022 to 2023

In the 2022 to 2023 release, one element of the low income benefits and tax credits Cost of Living Payment was not included, which has impacted on the data tables. Revisions are small, making a difference of up to a single percentage point either way, compared to the existing figures. They were made on 27 March 2025 when the 2023 to 2024 data was published. The chapters affected are Income and State Support, Care, Pension participation and Savings and Investment.

Correction to Level of Educational Attainment

In 2022 to 2023 an issue with the variable EDUCQUAL (formerly DVHIQUAL) was identified. This variable had been used since the 2021 to 2022 survey year, to present estimates of household food security status and household food bank usage, by educational attainment (of head of household). Investigation and corrective work since then has restored the quality of EDUCQUAL to the level required. As such, these tables have been published as 9.6 and 9.18 for 2023 to 2024 and are also available from Stat Xplore.

Review of imputation methodology for Scottish Child Payment

The Scottish Child Payment (SCP) was introduced in February 2021 and eligibility was extended to under 16-year-olds from November 2022.

The FRS began collecting data on SCP in the 2020 to 2021 survey year. As with some other benefits, the reported FRS caseload has remained below official caseloads published by Social Security Scotland (https://www.socialsecurity.gov.scot/reporting/publications/scottish-child-payment-high-level-statistics-to-30-september-2024).

For the 2022 to 2023 survey year, cases of SCP were imputed in eligible benefit units, to reduce the level of under-reporting. For 2023 to 2024, this methodology has been revised, in consultation with Scottish Government analysts. The new approach uses estimated age-specific take-up rates to create more precise estimates of state-support income within the FRS dataset.

As usual, any derived variables used within the calculation of benefit unit and household income include these SCP amounts paid. These variables are used in other FRS-based publications, such as the Households Below Average Income (HBAI), so the additional SCP is reflected in their analyses.

SCP is shown in the published methodology table M_6A. This compares the grossed estimates of benefit recipients in the data, with the total caseload on benefit from administrative data sources. Full details of the revised methodology is provided in the background information and methodology document published with the Family Resources Survey.

Scottish Winter Heating Payment

As the FRS questionnaire does not ask about receipt of this benefit, amounts are imputed within the dataset for those eligible. The imputation approach has been taken forward in consultation with Scottish Government analysts; the approach is similar to that of Winter Fuel Payments. For 2023 to 2024, the ADULT table within the dataset features both a variable to flag receipt (or not) and includes pound amounts within its income variables INOTHBEN and INIRBEN.

Below Average Resources

DWP are developing a new additional poverty measure. The second Official Statistics in Development publication (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/below-average-resources-for-financial-year-2022-to-2023/below-average-resources-for-financial-year-2022-to-2023) in the series was published on 23 January 2025. DWP sought user feedback on the new poverty measure through an analytical consultation.

The consultation response (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/below-average-resources-for-financial-year-2022-to-2023/response-to-the-consultation-on-the-below-average-resources-measure) has now been published.

Find future FRS publication dates in our statistics release calendar (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/announcements?utf8=%E2%9C%93&keywords=Households&organisations%5B%5D=department-for-work-pensions) and other DWP statistics on the Statistics at DWP page (https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-work-pensions/about/statistics).

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