 | |
| Department overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 8 June 2001 |
| Preceding Department | |
| Jurisdiction | Government of the United Kingdom |
| Headquarters | Caxton House 7th Floor 6–12 Tothill Street London SW1H 9NA |
| Employees | 84,550 as of June 2024[update][1] |
| Annual budget | £176.3 billion (Resource AME),[2] £6.3 billion (Resource DEL),[3] £0.3 billion (Capital DEL), £2.3 billion (Non-Budget Expenditure) Estimated for year ending 31 March 2017[4] |
| Secretary of State responsible | |
| Department executive | |
| Website | gov |
| This article is part of a series on |
| Politics of the United Kingdom |
|---|
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 United Kingdom portal |
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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for welfare, pensions and child maintenance policy. As the UK's biggest public service department it administers the State Pension and a range of working age, disability and ill health benefits to around 20 million claimants and customers.[6] It is the second largest governmental department in terms of employees,[1] and the second largest in terms of expenditure (£228bn as of July 2021[update]).[7]
The department has two delivery services: Jobcentre Plus administers working age benefits: Universal Credit, Jobseeker's Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance; the Child Maintenance Service provides the statutory child support scheme. DWP also administers State Pension, Pension Credit, disability benefits such as Personal Independence Payment, and support for life events from Maternity Allowance to bereavement benefits.
Non-departmental bodies accountable to DWP include the Health and Safety Executive, The Pensions Regulator and the Money and Pensions Service.
- ^ a b Worlidge, Jack; Aiyar-Majeed, Sameer (11 June 2024) [15 Dec 2017]. "Civil service staff numbers". Institute for Government. Retrieved 1 July 2024.
- ^ "How to understand public sector spending – Annually managed expenditure (AME)". HM Treasury. 29 May 2013. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
Annually managed expenditure, or AME, is more difficult to explain or control as it is spent on programmes which are demand-led – such as welfare, tax credits or public sector pensions. It is spent on items that may be unpredictable or not easily controlled by departments, and are relatively large in comparison to other government departments.
- ^ "How to understand public sector spending – Departmental Expenditure Limits (DEL)". HM Treasury. 29 May 2013. Archived from the original on 18 September 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
The government budget that is allocated to and spent by government departments is known as the Departmental Expenditure Limit, or DEL. This amount, and how it is split between government departments, is set at Spending Reviews. Things that departmental budgets can be spent on include the running of the services that they oversee such as schools or hospital, and the everyday cost of resources such as staff. The government controls DEL by deciding how much each department gets.
- ^ Central Government Supply Estimates 2016–17. London: HM Treasury. 2016. p. 138. Archived from the original on 17 September 2016. Retrieved 2 August 2016.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Department for Work and Pensions". GOV.UK. Retrieved 14 December 2020.
- ^ "Departmental budgets". Institute for Government. July 2021. Table Total managed expenditure (TME) by department, 2021/22 (planned). Retrieved 1 July 2024. As of 1 July 2024[update] this article is dated 7 November 2017 but the relevant table is dated July 2021.