Office for Statistics Regulation

Revisiting the public sphere: a lens for understanding the role of the Standards for the Public Use of Statistics

In April last year, we published a think piece setting out the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)’s reflections on the role of statistics and OSR in an evolving public sphere. The recent death, in March 2026, of the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, whose modern theory of the public sphere informed that think piece, has prompted us to revisit the concept one year on. We have done so by considering the relationship between the public sphere and one of the most significant developments in UK statistics regulation in the last year: the introduction of new Standards for the Public Use of Statistics in the revised version of the Code of Practice for Statistics, published in October 2025.

Statistics’ role in the information foundation of the public sphere

As we discussed in our previous think piece, Jürgen Habermas’s concept of the public sphere offers a powerful lens through which to understand the role of official statistics in democratic life. For Habermas, the public sphere is not merely a physical or institutional space, but a normative ideal – a domain in which citizens engage in rational-critical debate about matters of common concern.

Deliberation of this nature depends on accessibility, inclusivity and – crucially – a shared foundation of credible information. In contemporary societies saturated with data and challenged by misinformation, statistical production and communication have a vital role in mediating the integrity of that informational foundation. As highlighted in a recent blog by the Chief Executive of the Science Media Centre, Fiona Fox, “misinformation will thrive if we don’t flood the public sphere with the measured, accurate evidence that the public is asking us for.” OSR’s Standards for the Public Use of Statistics – namely Equality of Access, Supporting Understanding, and Decision Making and Leadership – can therefore be seen as our contribution to an effort to sustain the epistemic conditions necessary for a functioning public sphere.

At the heart of Habermas’s theory is the idea that democratic legitimacy arises from reasoned agreement among citizens. Such agreement is only possible if participants in public discourse can rely on commonly accepted knowledge. Statistics play a central role here: they inform debates about economic performance, public health, inequality and countless other issues that structure political life. Yet statistics are not neutral artefacts. They are produced through methodological choices, framed through presentation and interpreted within contexts of power. Without safeguards, they can be misused – such as being selectively cited, misleadingly visualised or stripped of uncertainty – to advance particular agendas. In such cases, the public sphere risks degradation into what Habermas describes in his work, Theory of Communicative Action, as a space of strategic communication, where pure persuasion displaces the use of reason.

The role of the new Standards for the Public Use of Statistics

This is where OSR’s new standards become significant. The standards seek to ensure that statistics being used in the public domain are fit for democratic use by the widest audience possible. They do so by setting out OSR’s expectations for how statistics, data and wider analysis should be used in the public domain by public bodies. As such, they are relevant to a wide range of professions and roles across public bodies, including communication professionals, policy professionals, analysts, permanent secretaries, ministers and special advisers. They complement the Standards for Official Statistics, which set out the standards and practices that producers of official statistics must adhere to – the Code of Practice’s core standards of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value.

Equality of Access is fundamental to ensuring that all participants in public discourse operate on a level playing field. By mandating that statistics used in the public domain are available to everyone in a timely way, this standard aims to prevent the concentration of informational power among elites and encourage transparent decision-making. This directly supports Habermas’s insistence that the ideal public sphere must be accessible to all, not restricted by privilege or hierarchy. When journalists, researchers and citizens have equal access to data, they are better equipped to question, analyse and contribute meaningfully to debate. We highlighted the importance of equality of access during our casework intervention into the Prime Minister’s comments on immigration returns in September 2024.

Supporting Understanding extends this principle by recognising that access alone is insufficient for the public sphere to function. Habermas emphasised the importance of rational-critical discourse, which depends not just on the availability of information but also on its intelligibility. This standard calls for clarity, accuracy and contextualisation when statistics are used in the public domain, helping users grasp both the meaning and limitations of data. This reduces the risk of misinterpretation and manipulation, enabling discussions that are grounded in evidence and reason rather than confusion or misinformation. OSR’s public intervention in March 2025 regarding a government press release on Universal Credit claimant numbers was informed by this principle.

Decision Making and Leadership completes the framework by linking statistical integrity to political accountability and the independence of statistical production. This standard is less overtly linked to Habermas’ work on the public sphere but is nonetheless important. This standard encourages leaders of public bodies to seek and use impartial, expert advice when using statistics, but also encourages public bodies to proactively support decisions made by analytical leaders. The intention is to increase trustworthiness, of information and institutions by creating conditions in which the public can have confidence that statistics inform decision-making and have been used appropriately.

Turning ideas into action

Taken together, these standards help translate Habermas’s abstract ideals into concrete practices for the public use of statistics and knowledge communication by public bodies. The connection is not merely illustrative but structural. Habermas’s public sphere can be seen to depend on a shared epistemic infrastructure – conditions under which information can be trusted, debated and revised. We believe that OSR’s public use standards can contribute to building and maintaining that infrastructure. The standards do not guarantee consensus, nor do they eliminate disagreement; rather, they help ensure that disagreements are anchored in a common evidentiary terrain. In this sense, statistical regulation has a key part to play in facilitating the “measured, accurate evidence” which Fiona Fox describes.

However, the alignment is not perfect. We recognise that standards alone cannot prevent the politicisation of data or the unequal distribution of interpretive power. Even well-produced and well-communicated statistics can be misunderstood or weaponised, particularly in environments marked by low statistical literacy or polarised media ecosystems. We also understand that our standards are not the only factor guiding actors in the public sphere.

Nevertheless, OSR’s Standards for the Public Use of Statistics represent a new and exciting effort to uphold the conditions of democratic discourse among public bodies. They remind us that statistics are not merely technical outputs but public assets, integral to the health of the public sphere. If Habermas is right in his belief that democracy depends on the quality of our collective reasoning, then ensuring the trustworthiness and accessibility of statistical information is not optional – it is foundational.

The work of the Office for Statistics Regulation

Head of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), Ed Humpherson, recently spoke at the “Independence of Official Statistics International Conference” hosted by the French Statistics Authority in Paris, exploring how the work of OSR maintains public confidence in official statistics. The full transcript is below.

My aim today is to provide some context to the work of the Office for Statistics Regulation in the UK.

We are part of the UK Statistics Authority.

The UK Statistics Authority exists to promote the public good of statistics. It is the governance board for the UK’s national statistical institute, the Office for National Statistics. This is the UK’s most important producer of statistics, especially on the population and the economy. But it is not the only producer – in fact, in addition to the main departments of state and the governments of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, there are around 100 further producers of official statistics across the UK.

And the Authority has a separate regulatory office, called the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), that sets and upholds the standards for official statistics – not just for the statistics produced by the national statistical institute, but for all those produced by other government bodies.

I am head of OSR and so I will focus on OSR’s work today.

OSR exists to enhance public confidence in official statistics. Confidence in official statistics can be harmed in different ways:

A lack of independence in the production of statistics. This can undermine the basic trustworthiness of the statistics.
Shortfalls in the quality of statistics, for example because the data sources are not reliable as indicators of underlying real-world phenomena.
Misinterpretation of statistics in public discourse – whether because they are communicated inappropriately by statistics producers or misused by political actors in debate.

OSR has several tools to address these harms.

By far and away the most important is the promotion of norms of good statistical behaviour. We do this through the Code of Practice for Statistics, which OSR maintains and promotes. This Code is similar to the European Code of Practice in its content. There are two significant differences: first, the UK Code is more explicit about its philosophical framework – which focuses on user experience and perception of the Trustworthiness, Quality and Value of statistics: or TQV as it is known. Focus on TQV means that the entire language of the Code sets and reinforces norms.

The second difference is its scope. The Code covers the ONS as the main statistical institute. It also covers all the main government departments: health, work and pensions, environment, home office (internal affairs), justice and so on. It also covers the administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – and all of the separate public bodies mentioned above.

It is sometimes said that this means the UK has a very fragmented system.

That’s not how I look at it. In fact, I think the UK has a very coherent system with the Code and OSR as its glue.

What the large number of producers shows is that we aim to ensure that all statistical publications by government comply with the same standards. We don’t want citizens to receive a two-speed service, where there are official statistics from the ONS and mere “information” or “data” from other departments. We want it all to be done to the same standards – the standards of the Code.

So, promoting norms is our first tool. The second tool is our assessments. This is where we review whether official statistics comply with the Code. We conduct and publish rigorous assessments – you can see them all on our website. These assessments can either conclude that:

The statistics comply in full with the Code – and therefore can be called accredited official statistics (AOS).
The statistics comply in part, and we will set requirements for improvement within a given time frame.
The statistics do not comply in material ways, in which case we remove the accreditation.

This removal provides a powerful signal to users about the TQV of the statistics, and acts as a powerful incentive to producers to improve their work. To give a sense of the volume:

There are around 800 AOS.
In 2024-5, we suspended the accreditation of 15 AOS, many of them because of their reliance on the Labour Force Survey, which has suffered from challenges around the representativeness of its survey results. And in 2025-6, we suspended a further 23 AOS.

The third tool is the most subtle, but very important.

We support the work of professional statisticians in producers. In all producers there is a head of profession for statistics who has important responsibilities under the Code to uphold standards and reach professionally sound decisions. We form strong alliances with these producers and see our interventions as enhancing their role – even where we are telling them that they have areas for improvement.

Finally, we use our voice to stand up for the appropriate interpretation of statistics.

At times, this can involve us making public statements about the way statistics have been used by prominent politicians. This reinforces the standards of public use, but requires careful judgement, experience – and a blend of diplomacy and escalation.

Let me summarise. The UK system is characterised by:

An overarching focus on the public good provided by statistics.
OSR developing the Code of Practice as the glue that holds a very wide number of producers together. This advocates the norms of good statistical practice.
And we support these norms through the power of accreditation and professional leadership, and OSR’s public voice as a champion of statistics.

First words matter: How four landmark reviews frame the purpose, power, and public value of official statistics

There have been several consequential reviews of the role and performance of the UK statistics system over the last few years, each having great impact. To my mind, there are four key ones:

Professor Denise Lievesley’s review of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA)
Sir Robert Devereux’s review of the Office for National Statistics (ONS)’s performance and culture
Professor Alice Sullivan’s review of sex and gender data
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC)’s report on the UK’s evidence base

These reports all make statements early on about the importance of statistics. Can you match the reviews with the statements below?

A – Lievesley Review

B – Devereux Review

C – Sullivan Review

D – PACAC 2024 review ‘Transforming the UK’s evidence base’

“Without accurate and trusted statistics, we move closer to a post-truth world of ‘alternative facts’… The UK has a long tradition of systematic social investigation, originating in the desire for information regarding population trends following the industrial revolution, and spurred on in part by the aim of understanding the effects of the great plague in London. This produced the empirical social research tradition of ‘political arithmetic’ which seeks to provide reliable data to inform public policy and debate.”

“I am honoured to lead this Review because of my long held belief in the critical importance of official statistics which are fundamental for evidence-based policy and decision making. Statistics we can trust are essential for a healthy society as they help to ensure well-informed decisions by putting the best available evidence at the heart of policy development and implementation. They also enlighten through making explicit what is known through scientific evidence and, importantly, what is not known.”

“Good evidence empowers us all. In government, good evidence can help Ministers in delivering their commitments to the electorate, in strengthening critical public services, and in growing the UK economy. Citizens rely on robust official evidence when they cast their votes, and when they make decisions about the schools their children attend or where they choose to live.”

“…statistics guide critical decisions of Government, independent institutions like the Bank of England and Office for Budget Responsibility, private sector companies and individuals.”

Answers

(The answers are: 1. C, 2. A, 3. D, 4. B)

At one level, this is just a bit of fun. It shows that people who do reviews say more or less the same things in their opening remarks; they clear their throats, so to speak, in a consistent way.

But at another, it reflects a long-standing hunch of mine – that these opening statements about the importance or value of statistics, while superficially similar, give nuanced, but vital, insight about each report that conditions everything to follow. I’ve been thinking about this because, as we at the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) implement our new strategy for 2026–2029, it’s important to be clear about the value of official statistics.

Reading between the lines

Take the fourth statement above. This comes from the summary of Sir Robert Devereux’s review of economic statistics, published in June 2025.

The Devereux Review has been hugely consequential. Alongside OSR’s own review of economic statistics, which we published a couple months prior to this report, the Devereux Review was a key driver of the ONS’s significant reset in the second half of 2025. The review highlighted the need to change the ONS’s organisational culture, prioritisation and leadership, and has underpinned the changes led by Darren Tierney, the ONS’s new Permanent Secretary.

The Devereux Review focuses on the role that economic statistics play – and the ordering of the actors in the quote is instructive: it starts with critical decisions of government and independent institutions like the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility. Other actors – private sector companies and individuals – are not exactly sidelined, but they do come at the end of this list of weighty and named institutions. Economic decisions matter to the Devereux Review.

By contrast, the 2024 PACAC report on the UK’s evidence base (the third quote) is more explicitly universal. It says “Good evidence empowers us all”. It then gives separate sentences to government use and citizen use, and enumerates the types of decision that are influenced by evidence in each case. Having reliable evidence for use by a wide range of actors matters to the 2024 PACAC review.

The Sullivan Review has a very specific focus – the collection and publication of data on sex. But the opening remarks are anything but narrow. They take an expansive historical sweep, highlighting the social and political role of statistics as far back as the great plague in London and the industrial revolution. These are not merely interesting historical observations. They are used by the review as the basis for its analysis of the long-standing prominence of recording the sex of the population in demographic and social analysis. The historical sweep matters to the Sullivan Review.

The Lievesley Review’s introduction, again, subtly but crucially differs from the others. Its focus is not just on the role that statistics play in supporting “a healthy society”, but in specifying the role of understanding of statistical uncertainty: statistics “enlighten through making explicit what is known through scientific evidence and, importantly, what is not known.” In this sense, the Lievesley Review conveys most strongly that we need statisticians as embodied actors who bring their expertise in data and their uncertainties to benefit society. The professional role of statisticians matters to the Lievesley Review.

First words and the value of statistics

I think it is easy to disregard these opening statements, to want to skip over them to the meat of the reviews, that is, the findings and recommendations.

But in my view that would be a mistake. These convey important information – and in what follows I’m grateful to Ken Roy, an independent researcher into official statistics, who has provided a lot of these insights to me:

The introductions reveal what the review is going to focus on. For example, the role of statistics for economic decision makers (Devereux) is a very different lens to that of the long-running role of social science measurement of the population (Sullivan). Indeed, the reviews fall into two categories: those which are about a perceived problem (Devereux, Sullivan) and those that are more holistic (PACAC, Lievesley).
They are also revealing of the breadth of the role of official statistics. As Ken has pointed out, there is no set definition of the purpose and role of official statistics, and debates about statistics tend to cleave into two distinct purposes: a policy-making, decision-supporting purpose on the one hand; and a purpose to support democratic insight/public understanding on the other. This breadth means that the introductions to these reviews need to start by setting out which of those perspectives they are going to focus on. They can’t draw on a commonly agreed basis. So they need to set it out.
The PACAC and Lievesley reviews tell us about the importance of statistics and statisticians to society as a whole: whether that is as components of a healthy society, which is honest about the limits of knowledge (Lievesley), or as evidence to support choice by a wide range of actors (PACAC). But even then, they do not explicitly recognise the full range of potential non-government users. Ken set these out in a blog he wrote for OSR a few years ago. He characterised the range of potential outcomes for official statistics (as expressed in visions, missions and so on) as:

- knowledgeable, represented, empowered citizens
- healthy public debate
- economic success
- effective government (demonstrating good governance)

This breadth of the purpose is reflected in part in the UK’s Statistics and Registration Service Act (2007). It focuses on statistics that serve the public good, and gives a two-pronged summary of what that means: both informing the public about social and economic matters, and assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy – and in that order, too: Informing the public comes first.

But this section in the Act is brief, and leaves a lot to be developed. To explore this idea further, at OSR we have developed a body of work on understanding the public good, from both the conceptual perspective and also through applied research into what people actually want and use statistics for. The overall conclusion of our work exploring how statistics serve the public good is that we should consider the widest possible public as the audience of statistics – and not to confine the focus to policy makers.

Final words

This all leads me to two conclusions:

Firstly, the next time you see a big review, don’t glaze over the first paragraphs. They say something important about what will follow.

Secondly, the question of the purpose of official statistics is far from settled. And perhaps it never will be – maybe these different uses will never be put into an established hierarchy. Which means that those of us who believe in the public value of statistics need to continue to advocate our case whenever the purpose or performance of the official statistics system is questioned.

And as we implement our new strategy, we will continue to emphasise the public purpose and public value of official statistics.

Skills for Care’s journey to becoming producers of an accredited official statistic

In our latest guest blog Natalie Fleming, Analysis team leader in Workforce Intelligence at Skills for Care, talks about her experience and learning from the process of achieving accredited official statistics status for an official statistic. Natalie joined Skill for Care’s Workforce Intelligence team as a data analyst in January 2022 after working in the NHS. Skills for Care is an official statistics producer with one accredited official statistic and plans for more in future.

Recently, Skills for Care underwent an assessment by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) that resulted in the accreditation of its workforce statistics. I’ve personally learnt a lot during this assessment process; it’s changed the way we work as a team and as a wider organisation.

Skills for Care manages the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) and produces reports using data from it on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care. We are in a relatively unique position as an independent organisation, not a government body, unlike many other official statistics producers like NHS England or the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Our users include colleagues in government, local authorities, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), academics and care providers. Due to the importance of the ASC-WDS data, it is vital that we demonstrate our findings are robust and reliable so that our users can have the highest levels of confidence.

Skills for Care’s journey to becoming an official statistics producer began in 2018, when the ‘Personal Social Services: Staff of Social Services Departments’ report began a transition of ownership from NHS Digital (now part of NHS England) to Skills for Care. In 2021, it was renamed to ‘The workforce employed by adult social services departments in England’. You can find the latest report from February 2026 on our website. This report kick-started the official statistics assessment process, which has ultimately impacted the way the team collects, analyses and creates all of our outputs.

The first step was working with OSR colleagues in 2022 to formally acknowledge our voluntary adoption of elements of the Code of Practice for Statistics, namely the three core principles of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value. Then in 2023, Skills for Care was added to The Official Statistics Order 2023, making us a producer of official statistics – hooray! The third and final step came during 2024 and 2025: this was the assessment process to determine whether the ‘The workforce employed by adult social services departments in England’ report could become an accredited official statistic. The report finally became an accredited official statistic in February 2025 – a huge achievement both for the team and for the wider organisation.

A key area of improvement for my Workforce Intelligence team was accessibility – in every sense of the word. First, we’ve adopted a new written report template which is better suited to screen readers and has helpful features for users with accessibility needs. Second, we have worked over the last few years to improve the designs of our data visualisations. This means users can access a vast amount of data in a clear visual way. This improvement is highly valued by our users, who often prefer the visualisations to written analysis or spreadsheets. Third, we’ve published a full methodology paper describing how we create our workforce estimates on our methodology webpage. This is an improvement on our old page, which was much more light-touch, and now offers the full details of the methodology. This new document won’t interest all our users, but for those detail-orientated readers it gives a much greater understanding and insight into our processes.

Lastly, in October 2025 Skills for Care launched our new and improved Workforce Intelligence website. The previous version was several years old and was originally designed for a much smaller portfolio of reports. As the product owner of the website redevelopment project, I oversaw user research with many users from different backgrounds across the sector. From these sessions, new user-led and then user-tested designs were developed. One aspect of the new site I’m particularly proud of is the improved accessibility features. The wording has been simplified and streamlined on every page, and the navigation menu altered to enhance the visibility of all parts of the website. We’ve received feedback that this has made a really positive difference for our users.

Since gaining official statistics producer status, other teams across Skills for Care have also improved their ways of working and processes when using our data. My team works collaboratively with colleagues in the Policy, Comms and Marketing teams to ensure findings are reported accurately and consistently when promoting new publications. This continues throughout the year via bulletins, newsletters and on social media.

Skills for Care has fully embraced being an official statistics producer. The organisation does a lot more than just data analysis, but the lessons learnt from our user research sessions and documentation spurred on from the OSR assessment process are driving other changes. Our official statistics producer status is helping to drive our internal data strategy, and more conversations are taking place about use of data in different teams. The Marketing team is also looking to upgrade Skills for Care’s other websites and using user research information and examples from the Workforce Intelligence website as part of this. This will ultimately mean all users and partners of Skills for Care will have an improved experience, and it’s lovely to see our hard work being championed by other teams across the organisation.

Beyond public letters: the hidden impact of casework

In this blog, Elise Rohan, Head of Casework, shines a light on the often unseen but highly impactful work of OSR’s casework function. Casework is the part of OSR’s role that investigates concerns raised about statistics from members of the public, Parliamentarians, journalists, academics and others. As she prepares to step away from the role, Elise reflects on recent private interventions and the lessons they’ve taught her about the importance of collaborative relationships.

One of the things I’ve learned in this role is that the most meaningful casework impact rarely comes from headlines generated by public letters – it comes from the behind-the-scenes conversations with producers. Our impact is greatest when we work together proactively rather than reactively.

When people think of OSR, they often picture public letters. But the reality is that most of our interventions happen behind closed doors. We are proportionate in our interventions and recognise that public letters are not always the best route to change.

Take our recent work with the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), where we were asked to look at its communications that compared the dangers of sunbeds with smoking. While smoking and sunbeds are both classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as Group 1 carcinogens, there isn’t evidence to suggest they pose equal levels of risk. Following our engagement, DHSC was quick to update its press release and social media posts to make this distinction clear and has committed to no longer using this comparison.

We also recently reviewed statements made by different ministers relating to the condition of flood defences. Verifying these claims requires data from several different sources across the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Environment Agency, meaning the claims weren’t sufficiently transparent and accessible to the public. In response to our engagement, the Permanent Secretary for Defra wrote to OSR agreed to improve the accessibility of this information and committed to incorporate and consolidate asset condition statistics, as part of its work to improve the existing official statistics on flood defence expenditure.

Our hidden interventions also extend beyond government. Earlier this year, the Greater London Authority (GLA) published some analysis on recent trends in tourism data following our engagement with them concerning claims by the Mayor for London on American tourism in London where the basis for the claims was unclear.

In each case, whether we intervene publicly or privately, we stand up for statistics.

As I prepare to pass on the Head of Casework baton, I remain grateful for the open and constructive engagement I have received from producers and organisations I have worked with over the years. These individual cases and interactions have enabled us to bring transparency of statistics into focus and ensure statistics can play their role in democratic debate.

Casework will keep evolving, but I am confident that OSR will continue to work in partnership with others to ensure steps are taken to prevent the misuse of statistics and uphold the vision that statistics serve the public good.

Don’t Ask for Trust in Statistics. Earn It.

In our latest guest blog, leading British statistician, David Spiegelhalter explores why trustworthiness—not trust—should be at the heart of statistical communication. Drawing on the influence of Baroness Onora O’Neill and reflecting on the updated Code of Practice for Statistics 3.0, he argues for intelligent transparency, honest communication, and a commitment to helping the public genuinely understand evidence. He also shares why it’s not enough for statistics to be trustworthy—they must be engaging too.

I give many talks to all sorts of audiences, from health professionals to business executives to attendees at book festivals. And, perhaps surprisingly, the Code of Practice for Statistics features in almost all of them (I do exclude school students from my propaganda).

This all comes from my obsession with the ideas of Baroness Onora O’Neill. She is a top philosopher, specialising in Kant, and she presented the Reith Lectures on A Question of Trust in 2002 – I still value the excellent book of her lectures. She was brilliant at distilling years of thought into short and clear statements, and one of these has had a huge influence on me, both professionally and personally.

In this age of misinformation and scepticism of authority, a repeated question is ‘how can we improve trust in science/institutions/public health etc?’. To which O’Neill replies, that’s the wrong question. Rather than trying to manipulate people into trusting us, we should be earning that trust by demonstrating trustworthiness. This is such a simple idea, presumably based on Kant’s idea of duty ethics (although I’ve never read any Kant), which places the responsibility firmly on the authority.

When I introduce this idea in a talk, many people in the audience take pictures of the slide, so I know it must be good. I then go on to show the Trustworthiness – Quality – Value (TQV) framework of the Code of Practice, showing Trustworthiness as the first pillar, although emphasising how important the Q and V are too. I feel I am channelling Baroness O’Neill.

I have recently had to update my slides with the new Code of Practice for Statistics 3.0. This rightly keeps to the basic core principles of TQV, which continue to form the basis for standards for official statistics. But I have been delighted to see the introduction of Standards for the Public Use of Statistics, Data and Wider Analysis. These focus on the way that statistics are communicated and used in public life, and are rooted in the idea of ‘intelligent transparency’ – incidentally another term introduced by Onora O’Neill. This includes equality of access and independence, but also enhancing understanding, which is my main interest.

Back in the pandemic in 2020, a group of us became very frustrated at the amount of frankly untrustworthy numbers being bandied around, by both politicians and commentators, so we tried to list what we thought were the vital components of trustworthy communication of evidence. Nature published our rant as a commentary, with our five points being essentially:

Inform and not persuade
Balance (but not false balance)
Acknowledge uncertainty
Be upfront about the quality of the evidence
Pre-empt misunderstandings

These later got incorporated into the Government Communication Service RESIST 2 Counter-Disinformation toolkit.

The Code of Practice 3.0 contains the essence of these principles for trustworthy communication, for example saying:

Do present and use data and statistics objectively, being impartial and professional
Do clearly describe the quality of data and statistics, including uncertainty and bias in estimates and impacts on appropriate interpretation and use
Do not use statistics, data or wider analysis in a misleading way. This includes not cherry-picking figures, taking figures out of context or placing undue certainty on them.
Take proactive steps to prevent or minimise the risk of misinterpretation or misuse.

I feel particularly strongly about the last point. It’s not enough to suggest what the statistics mean, it is also vital to say what they do not This could be thought of as pre-empting misunderstanding, but also could pre-bunk misinformation – getting in there early before false claims start circulating.

There is one final issue that is not in the Code. When communicating, I believe that there is little point in being trustworthy if you are dull. While the information should not be trying to persuade people to think or do anything, I do feel that it is fine to try and persuade audiences to be interested – to engage in the evidence so that they can be better informed.

So I have a small suggestion for Code of Practice 4.0: don’t be dull.

Code of Practice for Statistics

Mental health statistics across the UK: What we know so far and what’s next

OSR Regulator for our Health domain, Sarah looks at mental health statistics across the UK, with OSR’s findings so far and what’s next for statistics across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Understanding the mental health of people across the United Kingdom is essential for ensuring that government policies and health resources are targeted effectively. Back in 2019, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) began a major piece of work looking at mental health statistics across the UK. This was initially prompted by increasing public interest in mental health. Much has happened since we started this work, including most noticeably the COVID-19 pandemic. More than ever now, high-quality data and statistics on mental health are vital for understanding people’s experiences, identifying gaps in services and planning improvements.

Since we started this work, we have published reviews of mental health statistics in both England and Northern Ireland, as well as a follow-up for England and blogs from producers in both England and Northern Ireland. Most recently, in January this year, we published our review of mental health statistics in Wales.

Our findings so far

Understanding mental health statistics across the UK can be confusing, as each nation collects and publishes information differently. This blog looks at the current state of mental health statistics in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, highlighting what’s done well and where improvement is needed, and what this means for users of the statistics. Our findings have highlighted a few core themes across the nations:

There are important gaps in the statistics – for example, there is not enough information about how many people have mental health conditions, what treatment they receive and what outcomes they experience. Users often struggle to answer even their core questions from the published data.
Data aren’t joined up – the data don’t follow a person’s journey through the mental health system, making it hard to understand what kind of support works best. There is a clear need for stronger data linkage across healthcare settings (primary, secondary, community) and for more data that follow individuals over the long-term.
Statistics are hard to find and use – people often struggle to locate the data and statistics they need, and to navigate different websites, and the strengths and limitations of published statistics and what they can and can’t be used for aren’t always clearly explained.

The state of mental health statistics across the three nations

England: The most developed system, but still with gaps

England has the largest and most-established mental health datasets of the three nations we have looked at. Data collection is mandatory: providers of NHS-funded care must submit data to national datasets including the Mental Health Services Dataset and NHS Talking Therapies. This allows for broad coverage of service activity and means a wide range of statistics are available on prevalence, service use and treatment.

NHS England has also developed a Mental Health Data Hub to address concerns around difficulties accessing and understanding the published statistics. The data hub provides links to a variety of statistical publications and dashboards from a number of organisations.

However, the data still don’t give a full picture of someone’s care journey, especially across different types of services. The quality of statistics can also be impacted by variation in adherence to data submission standards and differing data submission systems across providers. NHS England has done a lot of work to identify and start to address quality issues since our initial review.

Northern Ireland: Longstanding gaps, but major improvements underway

Historically, Northern Ireland has had a lack of reliable mental health data, and systems across the country have been inconsistent. This has limited the availability of official statistics and, in turn, user insight. Northern Ireland’s Mental Health Strategy (2021-2031) highlights its intention to develop a Mental Health Outcomes Framework. Such a framework ‘will help in the evaluation of what works and will ensure services are provided that deliver good outcomes for people while providing value for money.’

Northern Ireland is currently investing in a new electronic patient record system called Encompass. This system is being introduced to create a single digital care record for every citizen in Northern Ireland who receives health and social care. This should help standardise data in the future.

Wales: Data at a crossroads, with plans to improve but barriers to success

Our review of mental health statistics in Wales found that there is limited mental health data in Wales, with gaps on topics such as prevalence, outcomes and inequalities. Different health boards also use different systems, meaning that the data they submit are often inconsistent across the health boards. There is no legal requirement for health boards to submit data to a standard dataset.

Statisticians in the Welsh Government have developed a mental health dashboard that brings existing data together into one place, but both statisticians and users emphasise the need for more person-level, outcomes-focused data.

To address these issues, the Welsh Government has proposed a national core mental health dataset that would link data across different services to track people throughout their care journey. However, progress on this dataset has been slow due to funding issues, IT limitations and the lack of legal requirement for all health boards to take part.

What’s next for OSR’s mental health work?

We have not yet examined mental health statistics in Scotland. We first plan to carry out a scoping exercise to determine what statistics already exist, their quality and what value they provide for users. Our next steps will be shaped by the findings of this exercise.

We will also continue to monitor progress in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and highlight the need for improvements such as increased availability of data, better data linkage, clearer standards, staff support and improved access to data.

Celebrating Women in Stats and the refreshed Code of Practice: Reflections from Denise Lievesley

Denise Lievesley, CBE, is a leading social statistician whose work has shaped statistical systems in the UK and internationally.

As the former Director of Statistics at UNESCO, she founded the Institute for Statistics. She is also a past leader of the Royal Statistical Society and International Statistical Institute, where her influence on the field is profound. Following all this, her experience was called upon most recently to lead a review of the UK Statistics Authority.

This International Women’s Day is a reminder of the vital role that women like Denise play in ensuring that statistics accurately reflect the diverse experiences of everyone in society to strengthen public trust in data.

Denise Lievesley on Code of Practice 3.0

Launched in November 2025, the refreshed Code of Practice for Statistics 3.0 centres on three standards: Trustworthiness, Quality and Value. Together, these keep users at the heart of statistical production and help build public confidence in official statistics.

OSR spoke to Denise about why the Code matters:

“The Code is really important in underpinning the importance of statistics that are trustworthy, and that’s essential for our democracy.” For Denise, the Code is also a practical tool: “I use it in an advocacy role because I’m trying to ensure that people understand why statistics are critical, the relationship between trust and trustworthiness, and what we do when something goes wrong.”

Code 3.0 introduces new Standards for the Public Use of Statistics, Data and Wider Analysis, setting expectations for how public bodies communicate statistics with transparency, integrity and accuracy.

Denise comments on this development: “I value the new version because it highlights the importance of users and recognises that trust in statistics is a shared responsibility across the wider community.”

As we mark International Women’s Day, it feels especially fitting to celebrate leaders like Denise, whose advocacy continues to promote the refreshed Code to strengthen our statistical system, and enrich our democracy through having credible evidence.

Denise welcomes the opportunity to support Women’s day: “Over the course of my career I have been very happy to see an increasing impact of the technical and professional contributions of women and to celebrate how diversity of statisticians (in terms of their education, backgrounds, circumstances etc) has improved the quality of the questions we can explore with our data. It is important that statisticians are free to address issues even if they are uncomfortable or challenge received wisdom.”

“Through my various roles in the UN and more recently in academia as well as my connections with official statistics agencies I have been so fortunate to help young people to thrive professionally by inspiring them to embrace their individual paths while drawing on the advice and experience of others, though I recognise that juggling priorities is harder these days.”

Denise concluded by reflecting proudly on her niece who: “In her thirties, is a full professor of theoretical physics. I am in awe of how she and her husband manage to nurture both their two small children, their research and the education of their students.”

Renewed momentum? The Statistics Assembly one year on

One year ago today, the UK’s inaugural Statistics Assembly took place in London. The word ‘world-leading’ can be overused. But it is not out of place to describe an exercise in user engagement on an unprecedented scale.

The Assembly was an inspiring event. It had several hundred attendees, with many more online. It was a crucial step towards the UK statistical system becoming more open to its users. This spirit was exemplified by the speakers: they came from across the UK and internationally, and none of the main speakers was from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The statistics system can often be criticised for a lack of transparency in how it sets priorities. Users can sometimes feel that consultation is more about producers broadcasting what they are doing rather than listening. In this context, the openness of the Assembly felt significant, perhaps almost revolutionary.

One year on, what can we say about the way that the Assembly has influenced statistics in the UK?

In short, I am worried that there needs to be a refreshed injection of momentum into this process.

The Assembly: a step change in user engagement

The Assembly was one of the key recommendations made by the review of the Statistics Authority undertaken by Denise Lievesley in March 2024. Denise heard the concerns from users of statistics about a lack of meaningful engagement. She saw the Assembly as a mechanism for addressing this weakness.

The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), in partnership with the Royal Statistical Society, organised the Assembly swiftly and effectively. It took place 10 months after the Lievesley review was published. It was energising, creative and open. And there was a clear follow-up: in March, the National Statistician’s Expert User Advisory Council, chaired by Professor David Hand, distilled the extensive material generated during the Assembly into a clear report setting four priorities:

Reinvigorate sustained and effective user engagement.
Ensure user needs for more-granular statistics are met (including small areas, urban/rural, sub-groups of society, under-represented groups and so on).
Commit to a significant scaling up in the use of administrative data.
Recognise the needs for UK-wide statistics and advocate for, and support, harmonised data where desirable.

So by March 2025, things looked good. The event had happened, it was a success, and a set of priorities had been identified.

A summer of change – and some progress

And then events took a different turn, with the publication of two reviews looking at long-standing ONS problems. First, in April 2025, we in the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published a review of the ONS’s economic statistics, which highlighted deep-seated quality concerns on economic statistics. Then, in June, the Devereux review highlighted weaknesses in the ONS’s leadership, prioritisation and delivery. Since then there have been significant changes in the leadership of the ONS.

Over the last few months, under this new leadership, the ONS has been focusing on delivering an ambitious recovery plan, responding to OSR’s recommendation that it publish quarterly progress updates. It has done so with a commendable focus on openness, and with enhanced engagement with users of economic statistics.

The ONS is of course just one part of the UK statistical system, and it should not fall to the ONS alone to take forward the Assembly’s priorities. And there have been some important steps, by both the ONS and other statistics producers, to implement the Assembly’s recommendations, as set out on the UKSA website in December. Examples of progress include the publication of detailed information on the use of administrative data in the last census; the publication of a new approach to data sources; and a commitment to establish an online ‘trust centre’.

At OSR we have sought to progress the Assembly’s priorities. In particular, the new version of the Code of Practice for Statistics is more user-centric. In our day-to-day work, we challenge and support statistics producers to do better on user engagement. We have published a public involvement and engagement toolkit, which encourages producers to take a much wider lens on who they focus on when they undertake user engagement activities. Our push on intelligent transparency requires government departments to be open and proactive in making data available publicly, and our review of cross-UK comparability in June 2025 made systemic recommendations in line with the Assembly’s comparability theme.

The need to maintain momentum

There are lots of demands on the statistics system. The Assembly is just one of those, and it’s clear that all statistics producers are facing significant resource constraints.

But it’s hard to say that, one year on, the progress on the four priorities has been significant. This is recognised in the December update on the Authority website, which says that “We have not progressed development of the refreshed Authority user engagement strategy as quickly as we would have liked.”

But the Assembly’s priorities remain a powerful anchor for engagement with users of statistics, for two reasons:

Firstly, a lot of people committed time and effort to making the Assembly a success, in the expectation that it represented a substantial reset in how user engagement is thought about and delivered by UK statistics. It is important to realise the benefits of this commitment.

Secondly, there is a question of who statistics are for. In the course of 2025, there were two alternative versions of an answer to that question. The Assembly proposed the answer that statistics are for a broad, vibrant, engaged community of users. The Devereux review implied that the users who really count are the key institutions of the state drawing on economic statistics: HM Treasury, the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility – at least, for now.

Of course, both answers are correct. Statistics serve the institutions of the state and also a much broader range of users across society. An effective system holds these two sets of users in broad balance – recognising that statistics are for decision makers, but that ‘decision maker’ covers a very wide range of organisations and individuals in society.

Momentum regained?

The key point of this blog is simple. The Assembly represented a breakthrough in the way in which the statistics system opened itself up to its users. However, it should not be regarded as a one-off – but as an ongoing process, whose momentum must be maintained.

Moreover, the process for appointing a new National Statistician is underway. The new National Statistician, leading across the entire UK statistical system, can inject renewed vigour into taking forward the Assembly’s recommendations.

One year on, my view is this:

Is there a risk of a loss of momentum? Yes.

Can it be regained? Absolutely.

Going beyond consultation to creative conversation about the Code of Practice

In this blog, Penny Babb, Head of Policy and Standards at the Office for Statistics Regulation, discusses her experience of refreshing the Code of Practice for Statistics.

As we’ve recently released the third edition of the Code of Practice for Statistics, I am keen to reflect on the experiences that have brought us to this point. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Royal Statistical Society, and the many statistical producers and stakeholders who have inputted their ideas and views about the Code – thank you! Your contributions have challenged our thinking and enriched Code 3.0.

The long and winding road

In October 2023, we kicked off a review of the Code of Practice and asked the question – is it time to refresh the Code of Practice? Following a wide range of engagement activities, by February 2024, the answer was clear: Code 2.1 had served us well – it was solid, trusted and respected. But in the light of the shifting data landscape, technological advancements and mis/disinformation challenges, it was time to think about how the Code could evolve to meet these challenges. So, we prepared a draft Code 3.0 and invited feedback through a formal consultation, which ran from October 2024 to February 2025. And here we are now in November 2025, after further refinement of the draft Code to address the feedback raised with us, with the latest edition.

Ongoing dialogue

Looking back to two years ago, when the Code 3.0 project kicked off, I’m amazed at how far we have come. We have had so many fruitful opportunities to hear from stakeholders across the statistical system and wider communities to inform our thinking. Our understanding about the Code has evolved through our regulatory work and through hearing about others’ experience and perspectives. In fact, some changes we’ve made to the Code are the product of engagement we’ve undertaken since the second edition was published in February 2018.

One example of how our thinking has been shaped by those using the Code is the development of the Code Principles. These largely stem from the work of the ONS sustainable development goal (SDG) team. In 2019 the team needed a way to test non-official data sources for use in monitoring some indicators. Their work led to our development of a set of universal principles which were relevant to any analyst. In turn, Code 3.0 builds on these ideas to unpack TQV in 10 principles which can be applied by any analyst.

Active engagement

Engagement is not a purpose but a means to establish purpose. Active engagement was core to the development of Code 3.0. ‘You said / we did’ is an approach that is often used in response to consultations. We used it ourselves after the Code consultation to summarise what we heard and to give a feel for how we were planning to then act. But as a way of reporting engagement, it misses out the nuance and depth of the exchange of insight.

By focusing on engagement through listening and responding, we have been able to establish an interactive and iterative process rather than a one-off sharing of ideas. We saw feedback not just as a series of edits to be made but as many insightful points to be carefully considered within task and finish groups in OSR.

Open to check and challenge

An important element of establishing any dialogue is the exchange of understanding and respect. Listening is critical for this to occur, as is a degree of empathy. But for the dialogue to be successful, it requires all parties to be open to hearing from each other. Central to that is seeing yourself as accountable for your decisions and actions and being courageous enough to invite criticism as you determine how best to meet your responsibilities.

We have embedded an accountability framework within our Code 3.0 package, which was developed after input from David Caplan, who has been an important stakeholder throughout our Code development. David has worked for 20 years in the GSS, was director of research and analytics at the Audit Commission, and we are happy to hear is the incoming Honorary Officer for Public Statistics at the RSS. At a Code/RSS event, David shared his thinking about an accountability model based on his previous experiences at the Audit Commission. This inspired us to take our framework forward.

Our accountability framework highlights that you must be willing to hear critical feedback: to give an account, be held to account and make good. Accountability relies on you first seeing yourself as accountable to others – it is an attitude. Once you have accepted this frame of mind, you can then find ways to make yourself accountable.

I love the simplicity of the accountability framework, although I recognise that following its principles is perhaps easier said than done. Unless you are willing to hear what others have to say, to reflect on it and then to set out what you are doing in response – whether you can or can’t, agree or disagree – you will be working in a bubble, isolated from hearing about ways you may need to evolve and grow. This kind of approach isn’t something new in OSR – we always aim to work to the standards we demand of others. In fact, thinking about and enhancing our own TQV will feature more prominently in our upcoming new three-year OSR strategy.

Call to action (and listening)

So, as you check out Code 3.0, see how it can focus your thinking on what matters in your own context. Make yourself accountable to your colleagues and stakeholders – invite and listen to feedback, be open to check and challenge, and be frank about your decisions and the information that’s informed them.

What is it about TQV?

OSR launches a refreshed Code of Practice for Statistics: Embedding Trustworthiness, Quality and Value (TQV)