Impact of UK Supreme Court judgement on UK Statistics Authority and Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) work

FOI reference: FOI-2025-3099

You asked

Following For Women Scotland Ltd v Scottish Ministers [2022] UKSC 31 and [2024] UKSC 12, it is settled that references to "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 are to biological sex. That clarification bears directly on the Authority's oversight of official statistics, Equality Impact Assessments (EIAs), and advice about the use of sex variables in outputs that inform pensions, migration, health, housing and safeguarding.  

Please disclose all recorded information held by UKSA (including the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)) from 1 January 2023 to the present relating to:  

1) Legal compliance & Equality Act duties  

• Legal advice (internal or external), Board/committee papers, and governance reviews concerning UKSA/OSR obligations under the Equality Act post-UKSC rulings, including use/definition of "sex" vs "gender identity" in the Code of Practice for Statistics, harmonisation guidance, or compliance casework.  

• Any changes, draft changes, or impact assessments concerning definitions/classifications of "sex", related metadata, or guidance to producers (including ONS).  

2) Safeguarding & resource-impact relevance of statistics  

• Assessments, briefings or casework on how incorrect or mixed "sex/gender identity" variables could prejudice safeguarding or service planning in regulated sectors (healthcare, prisons, education, social care), or distort NHS capacity/housing/local authority funding analysis.  

• Records referring to eligibility/verification concepts where relevant to stats use (e.g., HC2/HC3, NRPF, right-to-work) insofar as they feature in discussions about statistical quality or interpretation.  

3) Public spending & value for money  

• Analyses/briefings on financial, legal or reputational risks of publishing statistics inconsistent with the UKSC definition of sex; any remedial actions (revisions, withdrawals, annotations).  

• Material touching on the relative reliance on migration-based workforce supply vs training domestic workers when advising on or regulating relevant statistical outputs.  

4) Triangulation & devolved impacts  

• Correspondence/briefings between UKSA/OSR and ONS, HMT, DWP, DHSC, Home Office/MAC, DLUHC, and devolved administrations on sex definition, migration, pensions, health and housing statistics, including any notes on devolved budget or distributional effects.  

5) Transparency, impartiality & external influence  

• Records of consultation with or payments to external advocacy/lobby groups (e.g., Stonewall, EDI consultancies, migrant NGOs, business lobby groups) on definitions/classifications relevant to sex/gender variables.  

• Minutes/correspondence addressing impartiality (Nolan Principles), conflict-of-interest registers, and decisions to amend/withdraw publications because of the UKSC rulings.  

6) Names & accountability  

• Names and roles of UKSA/OSR officials, Board/committee members and consultants acting in their official capacity in relation to the above matters.

We said

Thank you for your request.  

As your request is centred on the Supreme Court judgement on the meaning of "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 published on 16 April 2025, we have interpreted your individual questions to be in relation to this judgement. 

Given the detail of your request, we have focused our search on the UK Statistics Authority and the Office for Statistics Regulation rather than the Office for National Statistics.  

We hope that this release meets your needs and we would be happy to assist with any further queries you may have. 

Documents included in this release:

Based on our interpretation of your request we have released the following: 

Proposed draft changes that were subsequently made to OSR's website to reflect the Supreme Court ruling.

Correspondence between OSR and the following Government Departments on sex and gender identity: 

• Office for National Statistics  

• Department for Health and Social Care 

• Home Office  

A briefing on a case raised with us regarding the reliability of the data held about the sex of patients in the NHS.

Please see the associated download for this information. Personal data of those below Director level has been redacted under s.40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA). In relation to communications with the Home Office, redactions have been made to information that is completely unrelated to the topic of sex and gender identity, as it is out of scope of the FOI request.

You asked for information on names and roles of OSR individuals -- information on our Senior Leadership Team can be found on our website. Information on Board and Committee members can be found on the UK Statistics Authority website. Whilst there have not been any papers presented to the UK Statistics Authority Board regarding the ruling, it was briefly discussed in the June Board meeting, see item 10 in the minutes.  

Given the breadth of your request, we also considered that it would be helpful to clearly set out what we do not hold information on and why. The following requests were considered within scope of this release but we did not hold relevant information:  

• There have been no governance reviews concerning OSR's obligations under the Equality Act following the Supreme Court ruling 

• OSR has not consulted with, or made any payments to, external advocacy or lobby groups in relation to the Supreme Court ruling  

• OSR holds no record of minutes or correspondence relating to impartiality or conflict of interest registers relating to the Supreme Court ruling  

• OSR has not made any decisions to suspend or withdraw accredited official statistics status on the basis of the Supreme Court ruling. Decisions to amend or withdraw publications are not in OSR's remit and will be made by the individual statistical producer organisations.  

• OSR has not produced any papers for its internal Sex and Gender Programme or the Regulation Committee in relation to the Supreme Court ruling  

• OSR has had no correspondence with the following departments in relation to the Supreme Court ruling: 

• HM Treasury 

• Migration Advisory Committee 

• Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities 

• Devolved administrations 

• OSR does not hold information relating to safeguarding or service planning  

• OSR does not hold information on eligibility/verification concepts  

• OSR does not hold analysis of financial, legal or reputational risks of publishing statistics inconsistent with the Supreme Court ruling  

• OSR does not hold information on the relative reliance on migration-based workforce supply vs training domestic workers 

Further to the above, we have withheld 1 email chain, starting 2 May 2025, between OSR and the legal team and a summary of the judgement prepared by the same team under s.42(1) of FOIA, as this constitutes legal advice and is therefore subject to Legal Professional Privilege. Whilst we acknowledge that there are transparency arguments in favour of disclosure to help to understand the organisation's position following the SC Judgement, we feel this has been fulfilled by the information already disclosed, which evidences the approach taken following the judgement. Furthermore, the inherent public interest in the need to safeguard the full and frank discussions between organisations and their legal advisors is strong. The public interest test falls in favour of withholding this information in this case.