Customer satisfaction with Department for Work and Pensions services
Published
Last updated 14 May 2019 - see all updates
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1. Main facts and figures
- in 2017/18, Asian claimants were the most likely to be satisfied with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) services (91%) out of all ethnic groups, while claimants from the Mixed ethnic group were least likely to be satisfied (78%)
- from 2016/17 to 2017/18, the percentage of Asian claimants who were satisfied with DWP services rose from 85% to 91%. For the Mixed group, satisfaction fell from 82% to 78%
- from 2016/17 to 2017/18, the percentage of White British claimants who were satisfied with DWP services fell from 87% to 85%
Things you need to know
The data collected through the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Claimant Service and Experience Survey is used to make generalisations about the total population.
Keep in mind when making comparisons between ethnic groups that all survey estimates are subject to a degree of uncertainty. This is because they are based on a sample of the population. The degree of uncertainty is greater when the number of respondents is small, so it will be highest for ethnic minority groups.
The commentary for this data only includes reliable, or ‘statistically significant’, findings.
Findings are statistically significant when we can be confident that they can be repeated, and reflect the total population rather than just the survey sample.
Specifically, the statistical tests used mean we can be confident that if we carried out the same survey on different random samples of the population, 19 times out of 20 we would get similar findings.
The commentary has focused on findings based on subgroups of at least 100 people to ensure that we report reliable findings.
All surveys carry the risk of biased results if some types of people were less likely to respond than others. To compensate for this, the responses to this survey have been weighted so they better reflect characteristics of the target population. For more about weighting, see the 'Methodology' section.
Satisfaction figures are estimates based on respondents who have had recent contact with DWP. This means they may not reflect the whole claimant population. Keep in mind too that percentages may not add up to 100%, due to rounding.
What the data measures
This data measures the level of satisfaction of claimants who have had recent contact with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
A ‘claimant’ is someone who gets disability benefits, out-of-work benefits or a State Pension.
The DWP Claimant Service and Experience Survey is held every 3 months, and around 15,500 claimants are interviewed each year. They are selected randomly from all claimants who, in the previous 2 to 3 months have had contact with DWP (for example, they may have made a new claim, or have contacted DWP about a change of circumstances for an existing claim).
Claimants are asked how satisfied they were with the service they received, and choose a response from a 4-point scale which goes from ‘very satisfied’ to ‘very dissatisfied’. Their answers are grouped together to show the percentage of claimants who were satisfied ('fairly satisfied' or 'very satisfied') and the percentage who were dissatisfied ('very dissatisfied' or 'fairly dissatisfied').
The ethnic categories used in this data
For this data, the number of people surveyed (the ‘sample size’) was too small to draw any firm conclusions about specific ethnic categories. Therefore, the data is broken down into the following groups:
- Asian/Asian British
- Black/African/Caribbean/Black British
- Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups
- White British
- White Other
- Other ethnic group
Previously the data included an ‘unreported’ ethnic category made up of people whose ethnicity was unknown or who refused to answer. This has been removed from the analysis because of unreliable fluctuations in the data.
2. By ethnicity
| 2016/2017 | 2017/2018 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnicity | 2016/2017 Very or fairly satisfied (%) | 2016/2017 Respondents | 2016/2017 Very or fairly unsatisfied (%) | 2016/2017 Respondents | 2016/2017 All respondents | 2017/2018 Very or fairly satisfied (%) | 2017/2018 Respondents | 2017/2018 Very or fairly unsatisfied (%) | 2017/2018 Respondents | 2017/2018 All respondents |
| Asian | 86 | 672 | 13 | 101 | 778 | 91 | 703 | 8 | 68 | 782 |
| Black | 85 | 788 | 13 | 119 | 922 | 83 | 724 | 15 | 167 | 912 |
| Mixed | 82 | 351 | 17 | 74 | 427 | 78 | 263 | 21 | 66 | 337 |
| White British | 87 | 10,791 | 12 | 1,517 | 12,442 | 85 | 10,374 | 14 | 1,923 | 12,448 |
| White other | 86 | 435 | 13 | 64 | 506 | 85 | 398 | 14 | 79 | 487 |
| Other | 81 | 175 | 17 | 36 | 215 | 85 | 211 | 14 | 46 | 261 |
Download table data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV) Source data for ‘By ethnicity’ (CSV)
Summary of Customer satisfaction with Department for Work and Pensions services By ethnicity Summary
This data shows that:
- in 2017/18, claimants from the Mixed (78%) ethnic group were least likely out of all ethnic groups to be satisfied with Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) services
- in the same period, claimants from the Asian (91%) ethnic group were most likely to be satisfied with DWP services
- from 2016/17 to 2017/18, the Asian ethnic group saw the largest annual increase in the percentage of claimants who were satisfied with DWP services, from 86% to 91% (5 percentage points)
3. Methodology
The population sampled is made up of claimants who have had contact with DWP within the previous 3 months. It does not include everyone who has ever been a claimant. The survey is carried out quarterly across the financial year, and interviews about 15,500 claimants per year (about 4,000 every 3 months). The DWP Claimant Service and Experience Survey results are ‘weighted’ to compensate for different response rates between different groups of respondents, so that the findings fairly represent the range of disability and out-of-work benefit claimants, as well as pension claimants.
The satisfaction measure is derived from survey responses to a single question in the survey, which is then aggregated to provide an overall measure of satisfaction.
Suppression rules and disclosure control
For data quality reasons, it is Department for Work and Pensions policy to suppress any values based on fewer than 40 responses.
Rounding
Percentages are rounded to 0 decimal places. However, gaps and differences between figures have been calculated on unrounded data. Percentages have been rounded up if greater than or equal to 0.5, and rounded down if less than 0.5 of a percentage point.
Estimates based on survey responses are subject to sampling error.
4. Data sources
Source
DWP claimant service and experience survey, 2017 to 2018
Type of data
Survey data
Type of statistic
Official statistics
Publisher
Department for Work and Pensions
Publication frequency
Yearly
Purpose of data source
The Claimant Satisfaction and Experience Survey is used to measure claimants' experience in their recent contact with the Department for Work and Pensions.
5. Download the data
This file contains overall satisfaction with DWP services by ethnicity.