Response from Ed Humpherson to Scott Heald: Publication of COVID-19 related statistics by Public Health Scotland

Dated: 24 April 2020
Last updated on: 24 April 2020
Sent by:: Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation, Office for Statistics Regulation
Sent to:: Scott Heald
Head of Profession for Statistics, Public Health Scotland

Dear Scott,

Thank you for your letter today. I am happy to confirm the exemption from the Code of Practice for Statistics’ standard publication time of 9.30am, to permit a later release time of 2.00pm each Wednesday for the PHS’s weekly COVID-19 report, starting on Wednesday 29 April.

Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic I welcome your endeavours to publish this release in line with the NRS weekly death release. The exemption from 9.30am publication, and publication at 2.00pm, aligns with other COVID-19 related statistics in Scotland. Your collaborative effort with other statistics producers in Scotland in providing a coherent picture of COVID-19 data to users is commendable and I appreciate your transparency around your forthcoming plans.

I also welcome your commitment to review and keep users informed publicly of any changes to your official statistics outputs during this period.

Yours sincerely

Ed Humpherson

Director General for Regulation

Response from Ed Humpherson to Scott Heald: Publication of COVID-19 related statistics by Public Health Scotland

Related links: