Introduction

The OSR Strategy, How we will strengthen trust and confidence in statistics 2026-2029, sets out OSR’s priorities for the next three years, focussing on how OSR will regulate fairly but firmly to restore confidence in statistics, drive systemic improvement and defend the public good.

The OSR Evaluation Strategy provides an approach for monitoring and reporting our progress against the commitments set out within the OSR Strategy. It will provide a transparent and proportionate approach to evaluating OSR’s work, outline how we will assess whether our activities lead to our intended outcomes and impacts, detail an approach for embedding learning and continuous improvement, and enable us to report publicly on progress against our strategy.

Evaluation focus

The OSR Evaluation Strategy will evaluate how we are progressing against each of the four strategic themes within the OSR Strategy. These are:

Credible and Rigorous Regulator

“We will be a credible and rigorous regulator, making clear and strongly communicated judgements against the Code and ensuring that statistics producers implement our requirements.”

System Catalyst

“We will be a system catalyst, identifying key cross-cutting issues to drive improvement, ensuring statistics meet user needs in a resource-constrained world.”

Public Use of Statistics

“We will champion public use of statistics, standing up for the appropriate use of statistics in the public domain – stepping in where we have concerns, and forming partnerships with key actors who support the integrity of evidence more broadly.”

Enhance our own TQV 

“As a regulator, OSR must exemplify the standards that we expect of others. Focusing on our own TQV not only shows us practicing what we preach but also provides a framework to underpin our own organisational ambition. It includes maintaining our independence and separation from producers of statistics (T); enhancing our capability, processes and quality culture (Q); and increasing the effectiveness of our public engagement and how we measure and enhance our impact (V).”

Evaluation framework

The OSR evaluation framework is built around three components: theories of change, key performance indicators and stakeholder feedback.

Theories of change (ToC)

Each strategic theme has its own theory of change. This approach maps the steps from what we do (activities), to the outputs we produce, to what we want to achieve (outcomes and impacts). By mapping this logic, and monitoring each stage, we can determine whether the OSR Strategy is delivering as intended; understand why things are working, or not; and adapt as needed, making the “how and why” of change visible and testable.

Annex A includes diagrams of the theory of change for each strategic theme.

Key performance indicators

Using the theories of change, we have developed a focussed set of key performance indicators. Within each strategic theme, we will prioritise indicators that reflect meaningful progress toward our outcomes, are feasible to collect and have credibility as measures.

We are taking a proportionate approach to the evaluation of our strategy. Rather than attempting to measure everything, we are prioritising a small number of meaningful indicators, testing assumptions and adapting our approach where necessary. The initial set of proposed indicators are listed here, while a summary table for all proposed indicators, their sources and feasibility is included in Annex B. These will be kept under review and adapted as necessary.

Our proposed indicators are as follows:

A measure of public confidence in official statistics (PCOS): While this is not a direct measure of OSR’s impact, we will use this to indicate trust in official statistics more broadly and to inform our understanding of how far statistics serve the public good.

Take up of producer self-evaluation: We will aim to assess statistics producers’ take up of our newly developed self-evaluation tool. This measure will help us understand if producers are taking greater ownership of compliance with the newly refreshed standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Timeliness and completeness of meeting OSR requirements: We will seek to understand if our recommendations and requirements are being taken forward in a timely manner, by developing a live register of requirements.

Accredited official statistics (AOS) profile changes: We will use this to track the reduction in the number of accredited official statistics that have we have not reviewed in some time, giving users confidence that accredited official statistics meet the expected standards.

Take up of, and engagement with, OSR guidance and event attendance: We will use web metrics to understand the take up of, and engagement with, our guidance, helping us to understand where we should focus our efforts.

Progress by the statistical system on findings from our annual State of the Statistical System report: We will seek updates from the National Statistician every 6 months reporting how the statistical system is responding the issues raised within our annual State of the Statistical System report.

Casework metrics: We will assess OSR’s responsiveness to issues raised with us, looking at how quickly we respond to issues and how many cases we receive, with some focus on repeat topics. This will help us understand the impact and timeliness of our interventions.

Intelligent transparency and approaches to monitoring the Standards for Public Use: Understanding our progress in monitoring the Standards for Public Use will help us understand compliance with our standards.

Results from the Cabinet Office People Survey: These results can help us understand staff experiences and engagement with OSR and will indicate whether our values of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value are embedded within our organisation.

Stakeholder survey

We will develop a stakeholder survey to gather systematic feedback from producers, users and partners across the statistical system, providing complementary insight alongside our quantitative indicators. The survey will help us understand how OSR’s outputs (such as regulatory judgements, guidance and engagement) are perceived and whether they are supporting stakeholders in the ways our strategy intends. This will allow us to test key assumptions in our theories of change, including perceptions of OSR’s credibility, clarity and influence.

The survey will also generate qualitative evidence on how OSR’s activities contribute to the intermediate outcomes and longer‑term impacts set out in our impact chains, including improvements in statistical practices, strengthened use of statistics and increased trust in the system. These insights will help explain why progress is or is not occurring, highlight barriers to and enablers of change, and support a strengthened learning cycle across OSR by informing adaptations to our regulatory approach and engagement activity.

Monitoring

OSR will monitor progress against the strategic themes using our theories of change, indicators and stakeholder survey. This will include developing baseline measures, ongoing internal reporting to our Portfolio Review Board and publishing mid-term and final evaluation reports. We will also use evaluation data in our annual report.

Baseline measure development

We will develop a set of baseline measures for each of the indicators outlined in Annex B and aim to publish these in summer 2026. For some of the indicators, we will be able to establish baselines quickly and in full. However, others will require more work and development, and we will need to use a proxy based on the evidence available to us. More detail on the feasibility of each indicator is given in Annex B.

Mid-term evaluation

We will conduct a mid-term evaluation to assess our early progress. During this stage of the evaluation process, we will assess and publish progress against all four strategic themes’ theory of change using the relevant indicators. We will also highlight areas where we are progressing well, and areas that require more attention to ensure that we still achieve our intended outcomes and impacts for the rest of the strategy term.

Carrying out a mid-term evaluation will allow us to gather insight into how well our theories of change are working, as well as evidence informing how we should evolve them. The mid-term evaluation will also be a good opportunity to highlight some impact case studies, and we will carry out our engagement survey at this point in the evaluation cycle.

Our findings will be detailed in a published report.

End-term evaluation

As we approach the end of the 2026–2029 strategy, we will begin a full evaluation of our overall progress towards our strategic goals, the outcomes of which will be published. During the final evaluation stage, we will assess if we have reached the intended outcomes and impacts described in our theories of change.

We will also identify successes over the strategy period, areas for further development and lessons for shaping the next OSR strategy.

Capability building and an evaluation culture

We will continue to build a culture of evaluation across OSR by investing in skills and tools across the organisation. We will utilise our in-house skills, explore bringing in external expertise, learn from other regulators and promote the use of evaluation across project lifecycles.

This Evaluation Strategy aims to provide a clear and proportionate approach to understanding OSR’s impact across the statistical system. By combining our theories of change, focused indicators and systematic stakeholder insight, we will create a robust evidence base that supports transparent reporting and enables continuous learning. This approach will help us demonstrate progress against our strategic ambitions and ensure that we continue to refine and strengthen our regulatory practice, enabling OSR to remain an influential, trusted and forward‑looking regulator that serves the public good.