Our standards for statistics and research

Statistics

All our statistics follow the standards defined by the UK Statistics Authority, an independent body operating at arm's length from government as a non-ministerial department.

All statistical releases are defined as Official Statistics by the Statistics and Registration Service Act, 2007. They are produced according to the principles of the Code of Practice for Statistics.

Statistics that are assessed as compliant with the code and approved by the UK Statistics Authority will also be designated as National Statistics.

Social research

Social research provides high quality evidence on social issues, processes and outcomes to inform the development and delivery of policy. It also tells us what people think of them and our understanding of what happens as a consequence.

Our social researchers are bound by the Government Social Research Code.

Principles for research and evaluation

• Early consideration of evaluation: new policies and programmes will consider the needs of evaluation from the outset.
• Effective planning of research and evaluation: the internal evidence planning process will focus on providing the evidence to support the Government’s strategic priorities.
• Research is published: we will publish research according to the Government Social Research publication protocol.
• Research is acted upon: Ministers will be briefed on a proposed response to the recommendations for every evaluation.
• Value for money (VFM): where it is possible to do so we will build in explicit VFM analysis in evaluations.