FOI reference: FOI-2025-2774
You asked
The second key finding on the recently published Systemic Review says Key finding: ONS is strongly supported by many stakeholders.
Can you kindly provide all the evidence available to support this statement in respect of the Systemic Review, including the specific organisations who have recently expressed such support?
We said
Thank you for your request.
You asked for all the evidence to support the statement that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is "strongly supported by many stakeholders" in respect of the systemic review. We have provided this evidence in response, available in the associated download. For information, the evidence is presented as a table with each row representing a different stakeholder.
It is important to note that this systemic review represents the culmination of a range of regulatory work undertaken by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) on economic statistics over the last few years. As such, the review draws on a wider range of evidence than just the interviews and written evidence collated for this specific review. This includes OSR's previous assessments of economic statistics, consisting of 26 assessments (listed in Annex 2 of the systemic review). Each assessment is an in-depth analysis of how far the statistics in question comply with the Code of Practice and provides a detailed and comprehensive picture of the statistics that it assesses. We also drew on the Independent report on the 2025 UK Statistics Assembly.
Given the nature of this systemic review, the discussions often focused on areas where stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction or identified scope for improvement. However, this was often set in the context of statements expressing general support for the ONS, and/or comparing its outputs favourably to those of some other National Statistical Institutions. As the notes taken were intended as a summary, rather than as comprehensive minutes of meetings, this means that some organisations not listed also reflected positive views of the ONS, but this information was not recorded at the time.
For OSR to carry out their regulatory duties effectively, it is key that individuals feel able to share views with OSR in confidence. OSR's ability to conduct well-researched investigations into the trustworthiness, value, and quality of statistics is reliant on obtaining honest views from primary users of those statistics, and those directly impacted by them. The prospect of such candid views being shared in an identifiable way would have a chilling effect on future discussions, where stakeholders would either not engage with OSR, or would feel inhibited in their engagement. This, in turn, would lead to poorer decision-making. In a time where the misuse of statistics is rife and can cause widespread misinformation, the protection of safe spaces to obtain a realistic picture of topics of concern is pivotal to OSR producing accurate, evidence-based conclusions for their regulatory work.
Due to this expectation and concern over the negative impact, we consulted with organisations whose comments were written in an attributable way. Whilst two organisations were content with release, another expressed some concerns. We have therefore redacted one organisation name from the comments under Section 36(2)(b)(ii) of FOIA, as we believe the release of this organisation's name in particular associated with their feedback would prejudice OSR's key casework function for the above stated reasons.
It is also for this reason that we have provided the list of stakeholders and their feedback statements separately.
We have also redacted the names of individuals under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).