UK Statistical System UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice
Stephanie Howarth to Ed Humpherson: Alternative release times for Welsh Government’s Population and household estimates, and Census 2021 topic summaries for Wales

Stephanie Howarth to Ed Humpherson: Alternative release times for Welsh Government’s Population and household estimates, and Census 2021 topic summaries for Wales

Dated
22 June 2022
Last updated on
22 June 2022
Sent by:
Stephanie Howarth
Chief Statistician, Welsh Government
Sent to:
Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation, Office for Statistics Regulation
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Letter to OSR for Code of Practice for Statistics exemption for alternative release time - 20220621

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Dear Ed,

I am writing to request an alternative release time for our statistical bulletin on the first release of 2021 Census data for Wales.

We would like to publish the bulletin at 11am on Tuesday 28 June. This is in line with the Office for National Statistics’s (ONS) plans to publish the statistical bulletin Population and household estimates for Wales: Census 2021 at 11am on Tuesday 28 June, which you approved on 13 May.

An alternative release time would allow the necessary time for the ONS’s statistical bulletin for Wales to be laid before Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament) at the same time as the statistical bulletin for England and Wales is to be laid before UK Parliament. This would be in line with the approach for the 2011 Census first releases.

Similar to the request made by the ONS, this alternative release time would mean that we could ensure equality of access to the first release of 2021 Census data for Wales (in both English and in Welsh) for all users on the day of publication. Subject to your approval of this request, we will inform our users of the alternative release time via our @StatisticsWales/@YstadegauCymru Twitter accounts, and via e-mail correspondence with our statistics distribution lists.

We would also like to request an alternative release time for our statistical bulletins that will accompany the planned 2021 Census topic summaries from the ONS. We anticipate that ONS will publish topic summaries at 09:30 as this is the standard release time for official statistics. We would like to publish statistical bulletins at 12:30 on the same day to accompany the ONS topic summaries. A 12:30 release time would allow us to summarise the main points for Wales (in both English and in Welsh). This would be consistent with our approach for other population statistics, which ensures equality of access and public value for users looking for statistics about Wales.

The ONS’s release plans for topic summaries are still subject to confirmation. I will write to you again if the arrangements I have set out here need to be altered when ONS’s plans have been confirmed.

Stephanie Howarth
Chief Statistician