National and Official Statistics
National and Official Statistics
All our statistical outputs are defined as official statistics by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 which is available on the legislation.gov.uk website. They are produced to robust professional standards of quality and reliability.
Many of our official statistics are also ‘National Statistics’. These have been certified by the independent UK Statistics Authority as compliant with its Code of Practice for Official Statistics (further information regarding the Code of practice is available on their website).
UK Statistics Authority
The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body operating at arm's length from government as a non-ministerial department, directly accountable to Parliament. Its objectives include the promotion and safeguarding of the production, publication, quality and comprehensiveness of official statistics that serve the public good, and ensuring good practice in relation to official statistics.
The Authority is also responsible for developing and maintaining the Code of Practice for Official Statistics and assessing all official statistics against this Code, before deciding whether they can be designated as 'National Statistics'.
Further details regarding the assessment process can be found in the UK Statistics Authority - Assessments area of this website.
The UK Statistics Authority code of practice requires us to publish the following:
Concerns under the Code of Practice
Guide to Basic Quality Assurance in Statistics
Statement of Administrative Sources (Excel 71 Kb)
Information on the quality assurance arrangements for administrative data used in population estimates (Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) 379 Kb)
Cost of responding to the armed forces unit survey (Updated 31 July 2014) (PDF 14 Kb)
Respondent Burden for the Annual Electoral Statistics Collection in Scotland (PDF 62 Kb)
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