Anna Price to Ian Lonsdale: Compliance review of UK biodiversity indicators and England biodiversity indicators 

Published:

Sent from: Office for Statistics Regulation

Sent to: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Dear Ian,

Compliance review of UK biodiversity indicators and England biodiversity indicators

We have completed a compliance review of the UK biodiversity indicators and England biodiversity indicators produced jointly by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) against the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics. These statistics are currently published as accredited official statistics. Our review considered whether these statistics continue to meet the standards of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value and should retain their accredited official statistics status.

Based on the findings of our review, we conclude that these statistics should retain their accredited official statistics status. The statistics are presented impartially, and the team’s user engagement, and how this fed into the indicator development plan, is a particular strength. The review also identified a small number of areas where further action is needed, and we have made three recommendations which aim to address these. For example, there are strong examples of communicating quality and limitations, but this is inconsistent across indicator chapters. Additional clarity on some of the indicator labelling and methodological decisions would be beneficial for users. We expect the Defra and JNCC teams to address these recommendations by publication of the 2027 annual statistics, currently due in November 2027.

I am grateful for the enthusiastic and constructive engagement of the Defra and JNCC teams throughout this review.

I am copying this letter to Clare Betts and Joe Taylor as the biodiversity indicator leads at Defra and JNCC respectively.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Anna Price

Joint Head of Regulatory Compliance for OSR