Our performance

Support and challenge producers to innovate, collaborate and build resilience

The change we want to see

We want to see producers maximising public good in the context of constrained resources. Where producers are delivering change, we want to see transformation that responds to emerging areas of user need and to challenges to resilience and to the quality of statistics.

Recognising the immense value of data sharing and linkage for decision makers and the wider public, we want to see this becoming the norm across the UK statistical system.

Delivering impact in key areas of statistics

Economic statistics:

Following the end of the UK’s membership of the European Statistical System, we have developed our approach to provide continued assurance that the UK statistical system produces high-quality internationally comparable economic statistics.

Our Spotlight on Quality programme has significantly enhanced what we deliver in this area and has provided good quality assurance. In 2024-5 we published:

• our Spotlight on Quality assessment framework, as well as
• assessments of ONS’s Business Enterprise Research and Development statistics and NISRA’s Northern Ireland Business Expenditure on Research and Development statistics.
• assessments of ONS’s Price Index of Private Rents (PIPR) and Business Investment statistics.
• (in February 2025) our plans for assuring confidence in consumer and household price statistics.

In the light of our emerging concerns about the quality of economic statistics, in July 2024 we initiated a systemic review of ONS economic statistics and published our interim report on 7 April 2025. We highlighted an urgent need to restore confidence and drew three main conclusions:

• ONS must fully acknowledge and address declining data quality.
• Making progress with administrative data is difficult.
• Greater strategic clarity of purpose and transparency on prioritisation would help reassure external stakeholders.

We set out a series of requirements and requested a response from ONS by July 2025. We will publish a follow-up on progress in autumn 2025, having considered ONS’s response and a review announced by the Authority of ONS’s performance and culture to be conducted by Sir Robert Devereux.

Labour market statistics:

We removed the accredited official statistics status from 13 statistical outputs where there are quality concerns based on Labour Force Survey (LFS) data and associated Annual Population Survey (APS) data. We have set out requirements for ONS to improve its communication and engagement, and to consider the lessons that can be learnt from the LFS and reviewing ONS’s work to develop an online replacement for the LFS, the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS).

Population statistics:

• ONS admin-based population estimates (ABPEs) for England and Wales: Our phased assessment approach for these statistics aims to provide reassurance to users on the new methods ONS uses to produce population estimates in England and Wales. We published our phase 1 assessment of these statistics in July 2024. Our assessment identified 11 requirements for ONS to act on that will help to enhance the public value, quality and trustworthiness of these statistics. These covered areas such as governance, data quality, methods, revisions, user engagement and communication. In October 2024 ONS published an action plan for how it will develop population statistics. This sets out that the work to address and build on the requirements and recommendations from the assessment will be iterative.
• Population statistics: Phase 3 Census assessments: We published our phase 3 assessment report of the 2021 Census in Northern Ireland in February 2025. This final report confirmed that the 2021 Census statistics in Northern Ireland are produced in compliance with the Code of Practice for official statistics, meaning that these official statistics meet the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and public value. Our phase 3 assessment of the 2021 Census in England and Wales is ongoing, with a projected summer 2025 publication date. Our phase 3 assessment of the Scotland Census will be undertaken in 2025/26. Work also continues on other aspects of population statistics. This includes monitoring progress on ONS’s work following the consultation on the future of population statistics in England and Wales, on migration statistics and on the population statistics transformation plans in the devolved administrations. OSR’s population statistics programme board supports this work, enabling us to share information across OSR, coordinate activities and identify any cross-cutting issues that we need to look into.
• Review of Gender Identity in the ONS 2021 England and Wales Census: Following the first release of census statistics on gender identity in England and Wales in January 2023, concerns were raised about the published estimates of the trans population. As additional census data were published, these concerns extended to the relationship between gender identity and proficiency in English. OSR undertook a review of these statistics and published a final report in September 2024. Learning from new evidence in Scotland’s Census, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) wrote to us on 5 September 2024 to request that the gender identity estimates from Census 2021 should no longer be accredited official statistics, and should instead be classified as official statistics in development. We supported ONS’s proposal, finding that the issues were unique to the statistics on gender identity, and therefore all other outputs from the Census 2021 in England and Wales are unaffected and remained as accredited official statistics.

Our final report shared our recommendations on the steps ONS must take to help users of the census gender identity statistics understand their strengths and limitations and set out the development work we consider is required on the Government Statistical Service (GSS) gender identity harmonised standard. ONS wrote to us in December 2024 updating on its progress towards meeting the recommendations. This included publishing a workplan for developing harmonised standards for sex and gender identity data collection and new Gender Identity Data Harmonisation interim guidance for statistics producers. Following these publications we updated our existing guidance on collecting and reporting data about sex and gender identity in official statistics in December 2024 to include these new publications.

Crime statistics:

ONS police recorded crime in England and Wales: These statistics are published as official statistics and not accredited official statistics following the removal of the accreditation status (then referred to as National Statistics designation) in 2014 due to data quality concerns. Our review, which was published in May 2024, set out the recommendations that we deemed as critical for ONS to address before we would undertake a reassessment of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. In February 2025 ONS published a comprehensive work plan in collaboration with the Home Office and HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, which sets out its work to address the recommendations in the review.

Data sharing and linkage:

OSR continues to advocate for data sharing and linkage for research and statistics. In July we published a follow-up report to our review of data sharing and linkage across government. This follow-up report assesses the progress that has been made towards the 16 recommendations in our 2023 review. The report concluded that despite welcome pockets of innovation, there continues to be a failure to deliver on data sharing and linkage across government, with many persisting barriers to progress. Linking datasets for research, statistics and evaluation – both across government and among external researchers – is not yet the norm in the UK statistical system. The report outlined the actionable steps that can be taken and highlighted examples of good practice in data sharing, access and linkage. We reasserted our view on what is needed in 2025 to advance data sharing, access and linkage across government in a recent statement.

Research into statistics and personal decision-making:

This research opens up a new aspect of thinking about official statistics: how often do official statistics influence the personal decisions of individuals in their everyday lives? Understanding this is central to the vision of OSR and the wider legislative basis for the UK Statistics Authority – to ensure that statistics serve the public good, by making them relevant, accessible and impactful for everyone. The Policy Institute at King’s College London and the Behavioural Insights Team were commissioned by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) to conduct research exploring whether, and how, people in the UK use official statistics for personal decision-making. We published a report in March 2025, which included recommendations for statistics producers to help make official statistics suitable for everyday decision-making by members of the public.

State of the Statistics System (SoSS) 2024:

We published this report in July 2024, drawing from across all our work as the UK’s statistics regulator to share our views on the performance of the statistical system and the challenges facing it, highlight areas of progress and innovation and set out our recommendations for advancing the system. The report made recommendations around three broad themes: ensuring quality, including addressing the long-standing challenges with household survey response rates and the broader need to ensure suitable data sources; improvement and innovation and the need for joined-up approaches to transformation and developments, and to overcome the barriers to data sharing and linkage; and effective communication and the need for an open, clear and accessible approach to the release and communication of statistics and data.

Champion the effective communication of statistics to support society’s key information needs

The change we want to see

Our primary focus this year was to protect the use of statistics and data ahead of the general election and through the campaigning period. More broadly, we promoted the principles of intelligent transparency, the communication of uncertainty and addressing misinformation.

Delivering impact

General election:

The UK General Election was announced on 22 May and held on 4 July 2024. Prior to the election being called, OSR launched an Election 2024 hub which brought together new and existing guidance to help users navigate statistical claims. This included specific guidance on the use of statistics in a pre-election period and a blog outlining OSR’s role to promote and safeguard statistics during the election period. On 7 June, having preannounced their publication, OSR published a series of election explainer statements covering statistics on key topics and what to look out for when they are used publicly. The statements enabled OSR to close cases quickly where multiple concerns were raised on the same issue. During the election period, OSR handled 70 cases related to the election and over 100 campaign claims. Compared with previous elections, we found that the debates in the 2024 election campaign tended to make less use of statistics on the past performance of public services and the economy. Instead, the claims largely concerned the transparency of party spending commitments. We intervened publicly on five occasions – publishing a statement and letter on party spending claims, a statement on claims regarding disability benefits and out of work statistics, a letter on child poverty statistics in Scotland, and a statement on the presentation of political polling support statistics in campaign materials.

Other key interventions:

Health and Wellbeing Census in Scotland: In 2022, we were contacted by several individuals who raised concerns with us regarding multiple aspects of the new Health and Wellbeing Census, which had been taking place in schools in Scotland during the 2021/22 academic year. Our initial casework investigation promoted us to undertake a more comprehensive compliance check of the survey, the results of which were shared with the Scottish Government in July 2022. We made several recommendations and requested that the Scottish Government review its approach to developing questions for the survey and publish the outcomes of the review.

On 13 February 2025, we wrote again to the Scottish Government to highlight that, 30 months later, the outcomes of the review had still not been made public. We also requested assurance on the processes and governance within the Scottish Government regarding the independence of Scotland’s Chief Statistician, in line with our expectations under the Code of Practice for Statistics. On 28 February, the Scottish Government published its background report into the Health and Wellbeing Census. The Chief Statistician subsequently wrote to us on 3 March to reassure OSR that the importance of independent decision-making around statistics is fully recognised across Scottish Government.

DWP claims on Universal Credit: Following the government’s announcement of its intention to make changes to the benefits system in early 2025, we received several complaints about a press release published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) entitled ‘Almost two million people on Universal Credit not supported to look for work’ on 13 March 2025. The press release included a claim that the number of people on the disability element of Universal Credit with no requirement to look for work had seen a 383% rise in less than five years.

After we initially raised concerns with DWP, the press release was amended to add greater context, but we considered that these additions did not go far enough to explain the numbers in a way that the public would understand. We determined that the claim presented an entirely misleading picture to the public. This was due to the claim not recognising that the majority of the increase was due to the process of migrating people from legacy benefits, such as Employment and Support Allowance, to Universal Credit over the last few years. When these people were accounted for, we found that the actual increase in the number of people claiming disability elements of Universal Credit was 50% between February 2020 and August 2024.

In a public letter to Peter Scofield, DWP Permanent Secretary, we requested that the press release be amended to remove the reference to the 383% figure and that this was not used going forward. In addition, we emphasised that it is vital that statisticians are included in the drafting process for communications using official statistics, including press releases, to ensure that such an issue is not repeated in the future. Peter Scofield subsequently responded to us confirming that the press release had been updated and that DWP was reviewing the process to make sure that all colleagues involved are aware of the need to include lead statisticians and analysts and follow the agreed approach.

Intelligent transparency: We have worked closely with the Heads of Profession for Statistics network across government departments to deliver training and raise awareness of intelligent transparency. We have had considerable successful engaging with civil servants including statisticians, analysts and communication professions. Our focus is now turning to work with private offices and special advisors to positively influence ministerial use of statistics. A report from the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) on Transforming the UK’s Evidence Base in May 2024 commended our work on intelligent transparency and recommended that OSR publish an annual report card of departments’ compliance with this guidance so that “Parliament and external bodies might support OSR in holding departments to account and making the case for well-informed policy”. We are currently exploring options for what annual reporting could look like in this space. In late 2024, Sir Robert Chote wrote to all Secretaries of State and devolved nations, in part setting out the importance of adhering to intelligent transparency. Since this letter, OSR has initiated a review of ministerial departments and devolved administrations to gather information on how the principles of intelligent transparency are being embedded.

Build partnerships to champion good practice principles for data and analysis that inform the public

The change we want to see

We want to build on and develop new relationships beyond official statistics that enable OSR to improve the ability of statistics, data and analysis to serve the public good.

The concepts of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value (TQV) are universal and can be useful in all kinds of situations for producing information that is not official statistics. The application of TQV can enhance public confidence in the use of evidence in the public domain.

Delivering impact

Partnership working in OSR

We have developed the nature of and structure around OSR’s partnership working in 2024/5. Significant steps forward have included establishing a programme board to oversee partnership working in OSR and introducing a toolkit to support everyone in OSR to feel confident and capable in identifying and developing potential partnerships. Our current partnerships span the breadth of OSR’s work, operating across areas including intelligent transparency, data sharing and linkage, evaluation, public good research and misleadingness.

Evaluation Registry

The Evaluation Task Force (ETF) – a joint Cabinet Office-HM Treasury unit providing specialist support to ensure evidence and evaluation across government – has asked OSR help ensure compliance with the now-public Evaluation Registry  The Registry acts as a home for all government evaluations, for improved accessibility and transparency.

Public engagement

OSR’s work on data sharing and linkage has repeatedly recognised the importance of ongoing, meaningful engagement with the public about the use of data and statistics. Reflecting the importance of enabling more work in this area, in the autumn of 2024, OSR joined the governing board of The Public Engagement in Data Research Initiative (PEDRI). OSR is also starting to incorporate public involvement and engagement in its own work, facilitated by ADR UK (Administrative Data Research UK) – another organisation with which we have an ongoing partnership, aimed at delivering data-driven outcomes that benefit society. Finally, we have been working with Connected by Data to consider the role of public engagement and involvement in official statistics.

General election

During the 2024 General Election we worked with a range of organisations whose values and purposes are aligned with our own, such as the Royal Statistical Society, Full Fact and Sense about Science. We also participated in the Electoral Commission’s Strategic Roundtables. In the lead up to the election, these partnerships enabled us to identify potential areas of risk that we could look to mitigate in advance. During the election period, this network ensured that our interventions were supported and shared through their own channels, helping us to reach a wider audience.

Voluntary application of the Code, beyond official statistics

We are seeing an ever-growing list of organisations who are voluntarily applying the Code of Practice, and we have announced the latest winners of the Statistical Excellence in Trustworthiness, Quality and Value Award (run in a partnership with the Royal Statistical Society and Civil Service World). OSR will continue to promote the use of the Code of Practice for Statistics for data and evidence, drawing on ideas and feedback gathered as part of our Code consultation.