The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in Kent appears to have grown according to figures which show how universal credit had skewed job statistics in recent months.

New experimental data from the Office of National Statistics show that dole queues increased by 72 to 16,670 in July.

The new stats have come in to take into account the introduction of universal credit alongside people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Since February, Kent has enjoyed significant falls in the number of people recorded on Jobseeker’s Allowance – a total reduction of 3,238 – but has not taken into account people on universal credit.

However, three of the four districts which have introduced the new catch-all benefit recorded an increase in dole queues under the new statistics.

The largest increase in Kent was in Swale – where the Sittingbourne and Sheerness job centres are phasing in universal credit – which saw its claimant count increase by 166 to 1,659.

The next largest rise was in Maidstone – also an adopter of universal credit – where 95 more people joined the dole line.

Other users of the new benefit showed mixed results, with Gravesham seeing its claimant count rise 13 to 1,225 but Ashford recording a sharp fall of 61 to 908.

Tonbridge Jobcentre manager Lorna Innes said: “In Kent we are operating two different systems which is causing some issues.

“When universal credit has been rolled out in all the offices that will have a positive effect and we should see the numbers going down.

“Locally, I would say the turnover is good and we haven’t got the amount of long-term unemployed hanging around we had two years ago.”

Elsewhere, large falls were seen in Dover, down 73 to 1,119, and Thanet, down 64 to 2,267, while Canterbury dole queues dropped 40 to 947 and Dartford fell 36 to 798.

Modest declines were seen in Tunbridge Wells, down 26 to 188, Tonbridge and Malling, down four to 713, and Medway, down one to 2,728, while Sevenoaks recorded a small rise of five to 536.

Unemployment in the South East grew by 11,000 people to 207,000 in the three months to June, an increase of 5.4%.

The figure was also an increase of 4,000 on the same time last year, when unemployment stood at 203,000, up 2.1%.

Nationally there were 1.85 million unemployed people, an increase of 25,000 compared to the three months to February.

The unemployment rate stood at 5.6%.