This is one of a series of reports prepared under the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. The Act gives the Statistics Authority (the Authority) power to re-assess whether the Code of Practice for Official Statistics continues to be complied with in relation to official statistics already designated as National Statistics. The report covers the set of statistics reported in Freedom of Information Statistics: Implementation in Central Government (FoI Statistics) published by the Cabinet Office (CO).
Following the transfer of FoI policy responsibility, in October 2015, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) transferred the responsibility for collecting and publishing FoI statistics to CO. Following discussions with the Head of Profession for Statistics (HoP) at CO, the Authority’s Director General for Regulation wrote to the HoP on 16 December 2015 to confirm the continued designation of FoI statistics as National Statistics, upon their transfer to CO. He welcomed the HoP’s commitment: to fully comply with the Code in respect of these statistics; and to uphold the values of trustworthiness, quality and value that underpin National Statistics status. The Director General for Regulation confirmed that a re-assessment would be scheduled for early in 2016. The previous assessment of FoI Statistics was reported in Assessment Report 35 in May 2010.
This report was prepared by the Authority’s Assessment team, and approved by the Regulation Committee on behalf of the Board of the Statistics Authority, based on the advice of the Director General for Regulation.
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