Our purpose and vision

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) is the Authority’s independent regulatory function, established by the Statistics and Registration Service Act (2007).

With offices in England, Scotland and Wales, we provide independent regulation of all official statistics produced in the UK, and aim to enhance public confidence in the trustworthiness, quality and value of statistics produced by government.

We do this by setting the standards official statistics must meet in the Code of Practice for Statistics. We ensure that producers of official statistics uphold these standards by conducting assessments against the Code. Those which meet the standards are given National Statistics status, indicating that they meet the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and value. We also report publicly on systemwide issues and on the way that statistics are being used, celebrating when the standards are upheld and challenging publicly when they are not.

Our governance

The legislation which established the UK Statistics Authority requires strict separation of the functions of production and regulation, where those involved in the production of statistics are not involved in the assessment of statistics against the Code.

Our work is overseen by the Authority’s Regulation Committee. The Committee is chaired by Anne Trefethen, a non-executive director of the UK Statistics Authority Board. Other members are also non-executive members of that Board, together with the Director General for Regulation. No producers of statistics, including ONS executives, are members of the Committee.

The Regulation Committee reviews and approves our strategy, annual business plan, and budget, and approves all key regulatory decisions on assessment against the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Our vision

Our vision is simple. Statistics should serve the public good.

Delivering the authority priorities for 2020-25

The Authority Strategy set out four priorities for the statistical system
for 2020-25:

• build public trust in evidence
• make greater data available in a secure way for research and evaluation
• enhance understanding of social and economic matters
• improve clarity and coherence of communication for maximum impact

As the independent regulator, we work through three delivery channels:

• We uphold trustworthiness, quality and value of statistics and data used as evidence
• We protect the role of statistics in public debate
• We develop a better understanding of the public good of statistics

These channels map to the Authority priorities:

Our vision and our OSR Strategic Business Plan 2020 to 2025 set the context for what we aimed to achieve in 2020/21

For more information about our organisation: what we do and why; how we work and the tools we use; and our broad ambitions for future development, please refer to our vision statement.