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UK Statistical System

The UK Statistics Authority's responsibilities cover the whole of the UK statistical system - defined as all the organisations and persons responsible for producing official statistics in the United Kingdom. Historically, the UK statistical system has been shaped by centralisation, decentralisation and devolution.

The key components of the UK system are:

  • the Board of the UK Statistics Authority. The Authority is responsible for promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of all UK official statistics, wherever produced, to ensure they serve the public good  


  • the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The ONS is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority's, the largest producer of official statistics in the UK, and the UK's National Statistical Institute (NSI)  


  • the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 leaves the decentralised nature of the UK statistical system unchanged. Each UK government department, and each of the devolved administrations retain operational responsibility for the collection and production of statistics which relate to their own areas of responsibility 


  • the National Statistician and the Head of the Government Statistical Service (GSS). The GSS consists of all statistical staff working in the ONS, government departments and the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales. The GSS produces the vast majority of official statistics and GSS staff are professionally accountable to the National Statistician through their own departmental Head of Profession for Statistics, or in the case of the devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales are accountable through their own Chief Statistician. Statistical staff in Northern Ireland maintain a close professional relationship with the GSS but are not members of the GSS

Many of the official statistics produced by the GSS are designated as 'National Statistics'. Accreditation as National Statistics means that those statistics are deemed compliant with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, published by the Authority in January 2009. The Statistics Authority is required to assess all existing National Statistics to determine whether designation should continue. This process is underway.

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