Findings

Changes to methods

The Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales and Cefas are committed to improving these statistics through proposed changes to methods and reporting. The changes to reporting aim to improve the accessibility, transparency and timeliness of data for users, while the proposed changes to methods aim to improve quality.

Proposed new methods have been tested and the results compared to existing approaches, including a comparison of the output of stock risk assessments. One development – on modelling rod exploitation rates – has been published in a paper from a peer-reviewed scientific journal, which states that the new approach represents “a consistent, transparent, and statistically robust method that uses information from ‘data-rich’ rivers to inform estimates for ‘data-poor’ rivers”. However, the paper highlights that the method will still require additional “angler-reported catch and effort data and some fishery-independent stock estimates”. The proposed changes to rod exploitation rate modelling should result in a more reproducible approach, allowing users to challenge the results and support trust in the final statistics. There are plans to take forward other method developments in a similar way where appropriate.

When the methods improvements were first proposed, no clear timeline was provided. This resulted in uncertainty for users and potentially damaged user confidence in the current approach that is still in use. More recently, the producers have engaged with key stakeholders, such as the Angling Trust and the English Fisheries Group, to inform them of the proposed changes through stakeholder user group forums. However, other users raised concerns with us that there has been limited broader engagement with the public or with smaller angling trusts, and there has been a reliance on higher-level bodies to disseminate information more widely. The forthcoming public consultation in 2026 offers an important opportunity for a wider group of users to comment on the proposed changes and their potential impact on the statistics.

Changes to reporting

The statistics comprise two detailed pdf documents, one containing the statistics ‘summary’, with breakdowns of stocks and fisheries and the numerous components that feed into the estimates with extensive legal, policy and methodological context. A second ‘background’ document includes extensive information on policy and modelling and explanation around progress towards conservation limits. Both documents are published in autumn every year and are 100 pages long, reflecting that the original users of these reports were the scientific working groups of ICES and NASCO. In April 2024, the Cefas team began publishing a new interim release of the data, which are the same data that are provided to ICES to produce its international monitoring reports. This means that more-timely provisional data are now available to users at the same time as the international bodies, via the Cefas data portal, several months before the statistics are published.

Some elements of the Code are already being met, such as providing detailed information on quality and methodology and making data available for reuse. However, the presentation of the statistics greatly limits their accessibility and value. Additions to the statistics over time have made both the main output and the background report long and text heavy, making it difficult for users to find key information such as quality notes or improvement timelines. The background document is particularly hard to navigate, which may undermine user confidence despite its comprehensive content. The increasing size of the documents largely reflects changing requirements for international reporting, rather than the needs of a wider user base. We note that the Environment Agency’s publication Salmonid and freshwater fisheries statistics, which feeds into these statistics, is published in html and has a more accessible layout.

The producers told us of their plans to improve the clarity and accessibility of the statistics. They would like to streamline the annual report to be more focused on the most useful elements and to move to publishing data via a web-based system rather than as a pdf. They noted that the Scottish Government uses an R-shiny app system for its data, which allows individuals to interrogate the data for a particular river without navigating the full dataset. The producers told us that they plan to engage with users about potential changes to reporting to understand their needs, although they did not specify how or when this would occur.

Institutional governance and statistical leadership

As part of the Code’s lead responsibly standard, producers should foster evidence-based decision-making based on strong, professional analytical skills and be willing to listen to diverse views. As official statistics producers, each of the three organisations responsible for producing the statistics has a lead official or Head of Profession for Statistics who is responsible for deciding on the methods and content of official statistics and for advocating for the application of the Code. More could be done in all three producer organisations to increase understanding and application of the Code, and to highlight its benefits; the launch of Code 3.0 provides a good opportunity to do so.

Some standards of the Code under its core principle of Trustworthiness are not currently being met for these statistics – specifically those relating to the orderly release of the statistics and the accessibility of the publication as an output. The producers told us that changes to publication slots have affected the predictability of release, which is a core requirement of the Code.