The UK Statistics Authority is an independent body at arm’s length from government. We have a statutory objective of promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that ‘serve the public good’. The public good includes:
- informing the public about social and economic matters
- assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy
- regulating quality and publicly challenging the misuse of statistics
In October 2025, the Authority Board published an open letter setting out its priorities and values for the statistical system and formally drawing the Statistics for the Public Good 2020 to 2025 strategy to a close – Strategic priorities for the UK statistical system.
Our remit covers the three principal elements of the UK official statistics system:
- the Government Statistical Service (GSS), which is the cross-government community of all those involved in the production of official statistics in the UK
- the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority and the largest producer of official statistics in the UK
- the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) which is the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority. It assesses official statistics for compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics, reports on system-wide issues and on how statistics are used, celebrating when the standards are upheld and challenging publicly when they are not.
A Memorandum of Understanding describes the responsibilities of the Cabinet Office with respect to the UK Statistics Authority, as an independent statutory body.