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 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 sets of statistics reported in Retail Sales, produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The previous assessment of these sets of statistics was reported in Assessment report 80. They have been re-assessed as part of the Statistics Authority’s ongoing programme of re-assessment.

This report forms part of a broader assessment of short-term economic output indicators produced by ONS. Assessment reports 278 and 280 examine GDP: Preliminary Estimate and Indices of Production and Services; and Construction Output and New Orders statistics.

This report was prepared by the Authority’s Assessment team, and approved by the Assessment Committee on behalf of the Board of the Statistics Authority, based on the advice of the Head of Assessment.

Statistics on Retail Sales: Letter of Confirmation as National Statistics