I sent my note 'Nearly one in three people on incapacity benefits capable of work' DWP - and 'alienating welfare reform' Salmond' to the DWP statisticians yesterday evening and I received this reply before lunch today. Adrian

Your query regarding the wording of the DWP Press Release has been passed to myself and, after reviewing the issues you have raised and the press release, I would like to clarify my understanding of your comment.

You have correctly pointed out that the statistic relates only to those receiving incapacity benefits, however, when I reviewed the headline of the press release and the statement from the article to which you provided the link, both included the word incapacity and neither suggested it was all benefit claimants.

When referring to "Incapacity Benefits", DWP is referring only Incapacity Benefit and Severe Disablement Allowance. (This is common across all of our products, please see the following link to the regular Statistical Summary http://statistics.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/stats_summary/stats_summary_aug12.pdf). I do concede in this case however, that it could be unclear as to whether this included Employment and Support Allowance and will look to resolve this in future publications and releases.

I can understand your point of view on the figures only covering those who have been assessed to date, however, on considering the production process of the statistics and overall wording of the release, do not feel it to be misleading. There is no systematic order in which the order of assessments have been selected and therefore those who have been through the process can be viewed as a random sample of the overall group receiving incapacity benefits. The figures will fluctuate slightly once claims still in progress and outcomes of appeals have been included, however, it is unlikely that they would change greatly. Therefore, its use in the headline of the release is not inappropriate.

If I have misunderstood your comment please let me know.

Regards