Annex B

Statement of voluntary compliance

This statement of voluntary compliance shows how we have followed the principles of the Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code) in the production and release of the management information for casework during 2023/24.

OSR does not produce official statistics; rather, it regulates those who do produce official statistics, and as such it is appropriate that we follow our own guidelines and voluntarily adopt the principles of the Code as much as possible.

The Code has three pillars:

• Trustworthiness
• Quality
• Value

Trustworthiness: Confidence in the people and organisations that produce statistics and data

As civil servants, all OSR staff members agree to abide by the Civil Service principles of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality and undertake mandatory learning for information assurance and General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). The work we undertake is to ensure that confidence in the independence of statistics is not undermined and that statistics, data and explanatory materials are presented impartially and objectively. We do this through our casework function by looking into the concerns raised with us.

OSR is the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority; this is a non-ministerial department, which means we are not accountable to a minister and so free from political pressures that other departments may face. We remain accountable to the Regulation Committee, a committee made up of non-executive directors, the OSR Director General (DG) and the Chair of the Authority. This committee specifically excludes statistical producers, consistent with the statutory requirement for the separation of statistical production and assessment. When it comes to completing casework, our DG will sign off on all casework with the exception of when there is a conflict of interest. In this event, the DG will not become involved in the casework process to reduce the opportunity for bias with our interventions.

This annual casework report was preannounced on our website ahead of publication (including any changes to the proposed date of publishing). Access to the management information in the report and the key messages was not shared outside of OSR before release; however, the case studies included were shared with the relevant departments ahead of publication to ensure factual accuracy and to provide advance notice that their specific case would be included. Should users need data during the year, they can access our issue logs weekly and a numerical table of our management information quarterly on our website.

Data are collected and stored securely, with access limited to those who need to see them. Our privacy policy on data collection is available on our website. Any personal data collected for management information purposes have been removed from this data release as appropriate.

Quality: Data and methods that produce assured statistics

The data provided were collected by us during the year for each case we undertake. This management information enables us to identify trends for this year and previous years to see if there is anything we can learn or improve on in future.

While we do make improvements year on year, the management information collected has remained largely the same. Where there are differences in what we collect year on year or when compared to what we do, these have been explained in the report and the assumptions section for the data. This includes, where appropriate, the limitations of the data and the conclusions we can make from them. This also includes explaining the potential impact the social media campaign had on our management information and what our conclusions would have been without it.

The data used in this report have been through internal quality assurance by an analyst in OSR who was not involved in the drafting of the report.

Value: Statistics that support society’s need for information

In order to increase the awareness of our annual casework report, we have used our own social media and websites to highlight the release as well as the use of appropriate media. We have also reached out to regulatory contacts to ask them to highlight our report or share our social media.

Our annual report is free to access and available to everyone at the same time, and the report is presented in a way that shows clear analysis and interpretation of the data with charts and tables. The raw data that underpin these assumptions are also provided. We have ensured that any colour in the charts comparing 2023/24 and 2022/23 remains consistent throughout the report to reduce the potential for misunderstanding.

We would love to better understand user needs when it comes to this annual report. If you have any feedback about this report or those from previous year, please contact Regulation@Statistics.gov.uk with your comments on how we can better meet your needs with future reports.