Legislation

The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body at arm’s length from Government, which reports directly to the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The operation of the UK’s statistical system is governed by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 which received Royal Assent on 26 July 2007 and came into effect on 1 April 2008.

This provided for the creation of a new Statistics Board – which operates as the UK Statistics Authority – with the statutory objective of “promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good”. The Board was established as a non-ministerial Department, operating at arm’s length from Government.

Legislative Documents

Pre-release access

Under the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act  2007, Cabinet Office Ministers and Ministers in the Devolved Governments are responsible for determining, by Order (secondary legislation) in their respective Parliaments, the principles and rules governing pre-release access to official statistics in their final form before publication. These are set out in a series of Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics Orders. The UK Statistics Authority will treat these Orders as an integral part of the Code of Practice for Statistics and assess official statistics for compliance with the provisions of these Orders.

• Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008 sets out the rules and principles relating to the granting of pre-release access to official statistics produced by the UK Government – came into force on 1 December 2008.
• Pre-release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008 sets out the equivalent for official statistics which are wholly Scottish devolved statistics – came into force on 1 December 2008.
• Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order (Northern Ireland) 2009 sets out the equivalent for official statistics which are wholly Northern Ireland devolved statistics  – came into force on 1 April 2009.
• Pre-release Access to Official Statistics (Wales) Order 2009 sets out the equivalent for official statistics which are wholly Welsh devolved statistics  – came into force on 21 October 2009.

Reviews and updates

Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics – A Review of the Statutory Arrangements (846.2 KB PDF )
Monitoring Brief 1-2012 – Monitoring Update – January 2012 (201.3 KB PDF )
Pre-release access – 2012 update (136.3 KB PDF )