Dear Alastair

Research and Development Statistics for Scotland

Thank you for your letter of 28 November 2022 setting out the impacts from ONS’s project to redevelop its Business Enterprise Research and Development (BERD) statistics on Scottish Government’s ‘Business Enterprise Research and Development Scotland’ and ‘Gross Expenditure on Research and Development Scotland’ statistics. I welcome your team’s openness and proactive engagement with us on this matter.

There are clear future potential benefits to ONS’s planned redevelopment of its BERD estimates once fully implemented. However, given that Scottish BERD estimates used in these publications are sourced from the ONS BERD data and the uncertainty around the detailed breakdowns of the new BERD estimates, we agree with you that it is right to temporarily suspend the National Statistics status of these Scottish Government R&D publications.

We will continue to engage with your statisticians, via our Business, Trade and International Development team, and look forward to considering the restoration of National Statistics status once you are assured that the statistics can meet the standards expected by the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Yours sincerely

Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation