What we do

The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 established the UK Statistics Authority as an independent body at arm’s length from government with direct reporting to Parliament and the devolved legislatures, rather than through Ministers, and with the statutory objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that “serve the public good”.

The Authority’s functions relate to its statutory areas of responsibility:

• oversight of the UK official statistics system, which includes around 30 central government departments and the devolved administrations, and the promotion, safeguarding and monitoring of quality, comprehensiveness and good practice in relation to all official statistics, wherever produced;
  
  
• production of a Code of Practice for Statistics and assessment of official statistics against the Code; and
  
  
• governance of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) the UK’s National Statistical Institute and the largest producer of official statistics.