Our Regulatory Work

Regulatory Work Programme

Our rolling work programme sets out proposed projects in more detail for the coming year. Our work ensures that practices outlined in the Code of Practice to ensure that statistics serve the public, in line with the pillars of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value. See more about our Regulatory Approach and our decision making.

To see upcoming publications in specific domains, please visit our domain pages.

Our main regulatory tools are:

Our assessments assess statistics against the standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Assessment is the only tool that allows us to grant National Statistics status on official statistics.

See more on our assessment process and guidance for assessments.

Systemic reviews are used when we want to improve public value of a set of statistics or examine a cross-cutting statistical issue (for example, data linkage or classifications) rather than one particular series.

See more about our published systemic reviews and our systemic review programme.

 

Compliance checks are short, focused reviews, typically providing a high-level investigation of the extent to which statistics meet the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics. Some are pre-planned, but our programme is flexible enough to respond to immediate important issues as they arise, and we are flexible in the coverage of each check in order to focus on those matters that are most pertinent to the particular statistics.

One of our key roles is to use our voice to stand up for statistics and to represent the public, monitoring and reporting publicly where we have concerns about the dissemination and use of statistics and highlighting good practice. Casework is the tool that best allows us to be responsive and investigate issues quickly as they arise.

Spotlight on Quality: Assuring Confidence in Economic Statistics

Following the end of the UK’s membership of the European Statistical System, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has been developing its approach to providing continued assurance that the UK statistical system produces high quality internationally comparable economic statistics. The focus of this approach will be a programme of assessments of economic statistics, with a particular emphasis on quality. See more about this work.