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Good practice for using official statistics: guidance for non-statistical staff

Updated 8 March 2023

Applies to England

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The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 established the UK Statistics Authority and required it to draw up a Code of Practice for Official Statistics. The Code of Practice was published in February 2018 and provides a statement of good practice to be applied to Official Statistics in the UK.

In order to comply with the Code, staff who are not statisticians must follow this guidance:

  • when preparing any publication containing statistics, including statistics taken from administrative or management information, you must involve statistical professionals at the earliest opportunity
  • you must not use unpublished statistics without the advice of a statistical professional
  • you must not selectively quote favourable data from any unpublished data set
  • decisions taken by statistical professionals are final
  • any publication containing official statistics must provide information relating to their quality, reliability and usability
  • pre-release access to official statistics is a privilege, you must not disclose any information, nor seek to alter it in any way
  • ignoring any of the above may constitute a breach of the Code and result in an investigation by the UK Statistics Authority and a published report to Parliament

1. Further help

If you are unclear about what course of action to take, or about any of the guidance above, contact Ofqual바카라 사이트™s Head of Profession for Statistics, Nadir Zanini at statistics@ofqual.gov.uk. If you are unable to reach Nadir, you can call the National Statistician Helpline on 020 7014 2350. is available for reference.

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