The Standards for Official Statistics in the Code of Practice for Statistics edition 3.0 requires a number of organisational policy documents and statements, relating to official statistics production. These are listed in Table 1.
Table 1 – List of required documents, with the associated practice number, in the Standards for Official Statistics
| Policies and statements | Practice |
|---|---|
| Statement of Code compliance | 2.5 |
| Release practice policy | 3.11 |
| Revisions and corrections policy | 3.9 |
| Data management approach | 4.1 |
| Confidentiality policy | 4.5 |
| Quality management approach | 5.8 |
| Annual statistical work programme | 8.2 |
| Public involvement and engagement strategy | 8.7 |
| Charges for supplementary statistical services | 10.6 |
Statements of compliance
Producer organisations should show evidence of how they are applying the Code by publishing a clear, brief statement (a ‘statement of compliance’), explaining how they reflect the standards of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value in their production and release of statistics. These statements should flag any areas they are working to improve (including links to relevant material as is helpful to users).
As well as the organisational statement, individual statements of compliance can be produced for statistical outputs or topics, for example, to explain any specific issues to users and to provide associated actions plans for the development and improvement of the statistics.
The statements of compliance should make clear that the statistics are regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). They should highlight how users can raise any concern with the producer in the first instance or otherwise contact OSR by providing the following accountability statement:
“Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to.
You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards.
Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.”
Producers are welcome to make the statement more explicit by giving a specific point of contact for users to email.
A short version could be added as a footer to every webpage with official statistics:
“Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)”.
Examples
Statements have been produced by some OS producer organisations in relation to their official statistics, or as part of their commitment to applying the standards of the Code to non-official statistical outputs. Here are some examples of published statements:
- Home Office
- Northern Ireland Department of Health
- Office of Rail and Road (ORR)
- Food Standards Agency
- Defra – air quality statistics
Policy documents
Table 1 lists a range of policies and procedures to be shared by official statistics producer bodies, outlining their approaches, such as on release practices, data and quality management, and user engagement. Here are examples of documents published by some producers:
- Department for Work and Pensions, including its statistical work programme
- HESA, including its release approach and user engagement strategy
- Ofqual, including its quality assurance framework
- Welsh Government, with a wide range of policies including its statistical quality management strategy
Statistics output teams should signpost relevant organisational documents and consider the specific application of the policy for their own statistics. They should highlight any key differences between the organisation policy and particular approaches undertaken for specific statistics, such as on user engagement or scheduling revisions.