Performance report

Purposes and Activity

Statutory framework

The Statistics Board, operating as the UK Statistics Authority (the Authority) was established under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (the Act) and on 1 April 2008 formally assumed its powers. The Authority is an independent statutory body. It operates at arm’s length from government as a non- ministerial department and reports directly to the UK Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the Northern Ireland Assembly. 

The work of the Authority is further defined under the secondary legislation made under the Act by the UK Parliament or devolved legislatures. 

Statutory objective

The Authority has 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 

Official statistics are for the benefit of society and the economy as a whole; not only in government policy making and the evaluation of government performance,  but also informing the direction of economic and commercial activities. Statistics provide valuable data and evidence for analysts, researchers, public and voluntary bodies, enabling the public to hold to account all organisations that spend public money, and informing wider public debate. The Authority is committed to official statistics enabling sound policy, decisions and providing a firm evidence base for decision-making both inside and outside of government. 

Statistics for the Public Good

On 16 July 2020, the Authority launched its strategy for the UK official statistics system for the five years 2020 to 2025. The strategy can be found in full on the Authority’s website. 

The collective mission of our official statistics system is:

High quality data and analysis to inform the UK, improve lives and build the future.

Functions

The Statistics for the Public Good strategy covers the principal elements of the UK official statistics system for which the Authority has oversight. The Authority provides professional oversight of the Government Statistical Service (GSS), and has exclusive responsibility for its two executive arms, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). The National Statistician also leads the cross-government Analysis Function. 

The Government Statistical Service (GSS)

The GSS is a UK network, spread across a whole range of public bodies, including the devolved governments and UK government departments which produces and analyses statistics. It includes professional statisticians, data scientists, geographers, researchers, economists, analysts, operational delivery staff, IT specialists and other supporting roles. The GSS is also a part of the cross-government Analysis Function, which has built a community of analysts of various professional backgrounds working to provide the evidence base for understanding the biggest challenges of the day. Both the Analysis Function and the GSS are also led by the National Statistician. 

The Office for National Statistics (ONS)

The ONS is the Authority’s statistical production function and is part of the GSS. Led by the National Statistician, the ONS is the UK’s internationally recognised National Statistical Institute and largest producer of official statistics. The ONS produces data, statistics and analysis on a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. 

Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)

The OSR is the Authority’s independent statutory regulator. Led by the Director General for Regulation, OSR ensures that statistics are produced and disseminated in the public good and aims to increase public confidence in the trustworthiness, quality and value of statistics produced by governments. OSR also reports publicly on system-wide issues and on the way statistics are being used, celebrating when the standards are upheld and challenging publicly when they are not. 

The legislation which established the UK Statistics Authority requires strict separation of the functions of production and regulation, where those involved in the production of statistics are not involved in the assessment of statistics against the Code. The Director General for Regulation reports directly to the Chair of the Authority and produces a separate annual performance report. More detail about OSR, including its approach, its governance and an assessment of its effectiveness is set out in the Annex to this document.

Overview

The UKSA Strategy

The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) strategy – Statistics for the Public Good – sets the direction for the UK official statistics system with its overarching mission to deliver:

High quality data and analysis to inform the UK, improve lives and build for the future

The strategy describes four strategic drivers that underpin the mission statement – UKSA must be:

Radical

Radical in taking opportunities to innovate and collaborate, using data for the public good.

Ambitious

Ambitious in setting out to answer the critical research questions the public needs the Government to answer, and informing the decisions that citizens, businesses and civil society take.

Inclusive

Inclusive in its approach to workforce, talent management, and the design of data, statistics and analysis.

Sustainable

Sustainable in delivering a unique service in a way which delivers value for money with lasting benefits and minimises impact on the environment, all through partnership and collaboration.

The UKSA strategy is supported by business plans produced by each constituent part of the statistical system.

The ONS Strategic Business Plan

The ONS Strategic Business Plan, updated annually, sets out how ONS will contribute towards delivery of the UKSA strategy. The Strategic Business Plan details how the ONS will deliver in line with the four Strategic Drivers – Radical, Ambitious, Inclusive and Sustainable –  working in partnership with the GSS, data providers and the analytical and research community.   

The 2024/25 version of the ONS Strategic Business Plan also set out the structure through which ONS delivers against its commitments. It presented five Priority Outcomes supported by the ONS Prioritisation Framework activities, business level milestones (BLMs) and programme level milestones of three transformation programmes: 

• Future of Population and Migration Statistics (FPMS) 
• Integrated Data Services Programme (IDSP) 
• Ambitious, Radical and Inclusive Economic Statistics (ARIES) 

The 5 Priority Outcomes for 2024/25 were: 

1. An enhanced reputation and trustworthiness for delivering independent and high-quality statistics and analysis.
2. Top quality published statistics on health, population, and migration. 
3. Top quality published statistics on prices, GDP, and employment. 
4. Greater linked data capabilities that result in faster, evidence-based decisions across government. 
5. Modernised and sustainable digital infrastructure using a secure, modularised approach. 

Statement about the use of Government Functional Standards

The ONS aligns to functional standards such as those for Analysis, Finance, Project Delivery, Human Resources, Communications, Property, Digital, Data and Technology, Security, Commercial, Internal Audit and Counter Fraud. The organisation assesses itself against these functional standards on an annual basis. Our review for 2024/25 noted that four areas have shown an improvement on our compliance against the functional standards compared to the prior year, with seven functional areas now reporting at least a ‘good’ level of compliance or above. All areas have plans in place to drive continuous improvement during 2025/26 and beyond to ensure continued and enhanced compliance.  

The National Statistician also leads the Analysis Function which supports a 17,000 strong community of analysts. The work of the Analysis Function is overseen by the Analysis Function Board (AFB) and the Departmental Directors of Analysis (DDANs), who represent Departments and our wider stakeholders. An Analysis Function People Board subcommittee has also been established in recent years to further strengthen the delivery of people specific priorities. This governance structure ensures the Analysis Function addresses cross-cutting challenges, drawing on the strengths of the analytical professions, and ensures a consistent approach to delivering expert analytical advice across government. 

OSR business plan

OSR published its Business Plan in April 2024. This set out the independent role, governance, vision, and priority outcomes and activities for OSR. Performance against the OSR business plan for 2024/25 is set out in the Annex to this document.  

Performance analysis

Introduction

The Authority has faced many challenges during 2024/25 across its statistical outputs in terms of quality, and in re-balancing ambition in the context of finite resources. Quality problems have manifested into published errors, delays, and de-accreditation of official statistics. Several Internal Audits for aspects of our technology implementation received limited ratings, with an unsatisfactory rating received in relation to internal data governance. These ratings have contributed to an overall ‘Limited’ annual opinion by the Head of Internal Audit; a deterioration from ‘Moderate’ annual opinions of recent years.

Given the overall context over the past twelve-months it is perhaps unsurprising that the organisation has come under external criticism, leading to the independent review by Sir Robert Devereux. The findings from the Devereux Review (published 26 June 2025) ) will help the Authority to set a course for improvement, starting with a plan for the recovery of core economic statistics. More detail on the challenges faced is set out below and in the Governance Statement. 

Despite these challenges the organisation has continued to deliver against its plans during 2024/25. The following sub-sections present highlights from the year aligned to Priority Outcomes (POs) as set out in our 2024/25 Strategic Business Plan.

Summary of performance by priority outcome

The challenging financial environment remains and user demand for our statistics continues to be high. These competing factors are set in the wider context of increasing costs of data collection, more challenging engagement with respondents, and difficulty in maintaining the capacity of our field force. Prioritisation has therefore been essential. In this context our POs are reviewed annually to ensure we remain aligned to the UKSA strategy and to user requirements. Each PO is delivered via a set of priority activities, and associated milestones and form the basis of the prioritisation framework. Performance against the business plan is monitored via key milestones and performance indicators.  

Key deliverables

The 2024/25 ONS Strategic Business Plan set out a high-level timeline of our key milestones for the year. The table below shows the status of these milestones on 31 March 2025. 

*The transition of these surveys to an online format has been extended to allow for the development of additional technical capabilities. These surveys are among the largest and most complex business surveys conducted, requiring bespoke technical solutions. Development of these capabilities is currently underway, with progress being made in line with the revised milestones. 

The Financial Services Survey (FSS) has now successfully migrated online. Additionally, the first of the price-related surveys has gone live, with the remaining three scheduled to launch by October 25. The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) has also expanded its online offering. 

To date, approximately 2.1 million of 2.4 million questionnaires, dispatched annually, have been successfully moved online. 

Key challenges

This section expands on the main challenges we have faced in 2024/25 and our responses to those challenges.  

Data 

ONS faces similar significant challenges as other organisations in collecting and processing the data that is required to inform our statistics. Data is collected from individuals and businesses through surveys (some online but some face-to-face), and from some businesses and government departments through data transfers. Our research and experience show that both sources of data continue to be necessary. The key external factor that impacts collection of survey data is respondents’ engagement, which requires the continuing evolution of collection options.  

The Labour Force Survey, and migration statistics, offer an example. The ONS recognises the real challenges that remain with its Labour Force Survey (LFS) and are prioritising addressing these. The ONS, along with other national statistical institutes, has faced the challenge of falling response rates to household surveys with existing trends exacerbated during and after the pandemic period. At its lowest point in 2023 the LFS overall response rate stood at 12.7% and the associated achieved sample was 14,180 households containing 29,220 individuals. This shortfall in achieved responses resulted in significant implications for the quality of statistics derived from the LFS, where we have seen elevated volatility and reduced precision in the resulting labour market statistics. 

At the same time, we have seen additional challenges from changes in population estimates. LFS survey weights rely on population projections, which are usually updated every two years because the LFS data are timelier than our mid-year population estimates. Projections are produced using information about past behaviours to provide illustrative estimates for future periods. In recent years we have seen big changes in levels of net migration which mean the future illustration and updated mid-year population estimates have varied more than they did in the past. This can impact levels of employment and other indicators provided by the LFS, so that they can be over or under estimated. This is important because labour market statistics are a significant source of evidence for decision-making that underpins financial and economic stability.  

The scale of the quality issues with the LFS resulted in the temporary suspension of LFS derived Labour Market Statistics from October 2023 to January 2024. To address these issues ONS introduced a survey recovery plan, which set out the significant steps required to restore the quality of LFS estimates. These measures have evolved over the 2024/25 period but can be broadly categorised into improvements to data collection and methodological enhancements. Alongside this, the ONS has focused on communicating to users how they should interpret and make use of LFS derived statistics in the period before they are fully recovered, including making use of our full suite of labour market indicators which includes surveys of businesses and HMRC data on the number of people on payrolls. Progress continues to be made in recovering the LFS with the achieved sample now significantly higher and the incorporation of updated population information into the estimates complete.  

Work has also advanced on our strategic solution, the Transformed Labour Market Survey (TLFS). Its online-first design means we can approach many more people in different ways to produce the best possible picture of the labour market. However, as a new self-completion survey, it has taken an extended period of time to fully develop to ensure we are achieving the quality necessary for users. In late 2024 we tested a shorter version of the questionnaire aimed at further improving data quality and plan to provide a further update on next steps in 2025.  A lessons learnt review was also commissioned to review the TLFS programme and opportunities for ONS in the future. The report identified a number of recommendations, and in December 2024 we published an interim action plan to address those, ranging from a review of governance, assurance, and decision–making processes to a strategic investment in surveys. Both the work to recover the LFS and to develop the TLFS has benefited from the introduction of a new Stakeholder Advisory Panel, chaired by Professor Jonathan Portes, assurance from academic experts and extensive engagement with key users.

The recently published Devereux Review also highlighted prioritisation and funding decisions as a direct driver leading to the removal of the “COVID boost” funding on the LFS. The Authority has acknowledged the review’s findings and the importance of fully funding survey data collection within the organisation. The Authority has committed to urgent recovery actions, including boosting interviewer capacity, improving response rates, reweighting the survey, and enhancing data quality assurance. The Authority has also reaffirmed its support for transitioning to TLFS as a long-term solution. 

Quality 

The organisation has faced quality challenges with certain core statistics related to reliance on legacy systems, the quality of input data (linked in part to the issues set out above), and the overall complexity of the statistical estate.  In some cases, these challenges can lead to errors in our published statistics. Over the financial year, the ONS reported 5 major errors in total defined as errors which could affect an important aspect of our release or could lead to user misinterpretation. These errors which required significant changes to our estimates were identified in: i) data delivered by another organisation (for instance, in the case of the error in the trade in goods publication),  ii)  statistical methods applied through legacy systems (for instance, in the case of producer prices, and trade in services publications), iii) manual steps required by the lack of portability between legacy systems (for instance, in the case of population estimates by output areas and property crime tables). These errors have been internally reviewed to ensure that the organisation learns from them, and to reduce the likelihood of reoccurrence, with specific focus on strengthening quality assurance processes and activities, upskilling teams on relevant coding skills and direct engagement with data suppliers to address issues at source. 

Cost Savings

Against the backdrop of these challenges and given wider public sector financial constraints, the need to find efficiencies and make difficult prioritisation choices were paramount. The ONS delivered £12.8 million of efficiencies and cost savings in 2024/25, which were essential to meet the increase in costs driven by inflationary impacts. 

Measures contributing to meeting this savings and efficiencies target included streamlining our outputs, automation of processes including through the use of artificial intelligence (AI), revising our commercial approaches and reducing our corporate services costs. While this released some savings for reinvestment to maintain our highest priority outputs we had to scale back in additional areas, for example on planned improvements to the Crime Survey for England and Wales and by reducing climate, environment, economic and broader analytical capabilities. These decisions have been unpopular with some of our users and have resulted in reduced support to some Government departments’ policy areas. The need to further focus our resources and prioritise investment on our core statistical production is the key driving factor of our 2025/26 business plan and features heavily in the recent reviews of the organisation and through the recent Spending Review. 

Continuous Improvement and Legacy Systems

With ongoing challenges around the quality of our production we have established continuous improvement principles to seek to manage and mitigate risk through the end-to-end production processes of our key economic statistics. We also worked with an external partner to develop improved ways of working to manage our statistical processes, with tools and techniques that will be rolled out across the organisation. Looking ahead, this should result in increased quality and efficiency alongside our existing programme of implementing reproducible pipelines and our focus on quality assurance. 

Addressing our complex IT and legacy systems has been more limited than would be ideal, because of a constrained financial environment. However, we have and will continue to prioritise improvements in this area.  In order to protect our current position we ensured that our systems continued to be supported, maintained and secure. We also ensured that the costs of continuing to fund legacy systems were prioritised particularly where specialist skills for their management were scarce. Nonetheless, the longer-term work to move away from all legacy systems remains high on our agenda for 2025/26 and beyond (recognising this will take time) with some demonstrable progress made in 2024/25. 

Our ongoing risks are described in the Governance Statement 

Overall Performance Narrative by Strategic Driver

This section sets out a more detailed summary of our performance by Priority Outcome  against the ONS Strategic Business Plan for 2024/25. It is often the case that deliverables span Priority Outcomes, therefore we have made the link where we feel the deliverable is most relevant. 

Radical – Cross cutting analysis and integrated data

Priority Outcome 1 – An enhanced reputation and trustworthiness for delivering independent and high-quality statistics and analysis.

The Authority continued to respond to emerging and priority topics and changing contexts that the public and government face. We worked to provide analysis and develop the evidence base to support the Government’s missions, such as Economic Growth, Safer Streets and Barriers to Opportunity, as well as newly created task forces focused, for example, on child poverty. 

In March 2024, we launched Explore Local Statistics (ELS), a digital dissemination service to find out more about local areas across the UK. The service allows users to find, visualise, compare and download over seventy subnational indicators from across Government in one place, addressing a well-documented need for improved accessibility and dissemination of local data. 

In April 2024, the Data Science Campus published the latest big data article on the flow of consumer card spending across the UK, containing insights into the relationship between where people live and where they spend.  

New methods were developed during the year for population and migration statistics, including using Advanced Passenger Information (API) to replace the International Passenger Survey for international migration estimates.

In March 2024, we began publishing quarterly updates on short-term lets facilitated by collaborative economy platforms via a landmark data-sharing agreement. This publication provides valuable insights into the growth of short-term lets, tourism trends, and supports evidence-based policymaking at both local and national levels. 

On Consumer Prices, we expanded our use of alternative data sources, including (since February 2024) data from AutoTrader being incorporated. This has increased our monthly price observations from 105 to 300,000. 

Our Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) continued to provide timely insights on a range of priority policy requirements including the Barriers to Opportunity Mission, trust in elections, flood prevention scheme awareness, and attitudes towards artificial intelligence and big tech companies. Its sister survey, the Business Insights and Conditions Survey (BICS) also continues to gather intelligence from a business perspective. 

In May 2024, statistics published by the Data Science Campus on ship crossings through critical maritime passages received significant media coverage and public interest. These statistics shed light on trade disruption meeting the needs of the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Cabinet Office. 

Through our Ukrainian Humanitarian Survey, we have responded and evolved to meet new policy needs winning both a Government Social Research award and Analysis in Government impact award in 2024. Our most recent release surveying Ukrainians in the UK was published in June 2024. 

In 2024/25, we continued to produce hyper-granular economic statistics. For example, we embedded our innovative gross value added estimates at Lower-layer Super Output Area (LSOA) and equivalent geographies into regular Regional Accounts production in August 2024.

In July 2024, we investigated firm employment dynamics in local economies through the Longitudinal Business Database, focussing on job creation and destruction across International Territorial Level 3 subregions between 2004 and 2022. 

Priority Outcome 2 – Top quality published statistics on health, population and migration. 

In May 2024, we published a ‘Reason for Migration’ output which included a net student migration estimate. This informed debate on whether international students stayed after completing their studies and if so, for how long. This has led to further user consultation in spring 2025 to identify what other net migration estimates would be useful in aiding decision making. 

This was followed in the summer 2024 by the publication of administrative based population and migration estimates, which were major milestones of the Future Population and Migration Statistics (FPMS) Transformation Programme. We invited the OSR to review the quality of the population estimates and their assessment noted “the work that ONS is doing to improve estimates of the population in England and Wales is at the forefront of harnessing technological advancements for statistics production”. 

Other notable FPMS Programme milestones achieved include placing a developmental administrative based census in the Integrated Data Service enabling onward data linking and more granular insights and publishing an action plan against the OSR recommendation for administrative based population estimates to be accredited as official statistics by summer 2025. FPMS continues to deliver on its key milestone to finalise and issue the recommendation for the future of population and migration statistics, considering the interests of HM Government as key users, and wider feedback, such as from the UK Statistics Assembly. On 17 June 2025, The Authority published a recommendation on behalf of ONS, proposing that preparations begin for a census in 2031 in England and Wales.  

In January 2025, we published 2022-based national population projections, which integrated transformed migration statistics and included a new interactive tool on our website. The tool allowed users to assess the impact of different demographic changes and explore the differing impacts of higher or lower assumptions on the projection.  

The ONS Centre for Crime and Justice released, to time and to expected quality, the strategically important quarterly Crime in England and Wales statistics series throughout 2024/25. With financial support from the Department for Education and the Home Office, we also further developed our work on measuring crime against children. We successfully piloted the Young People’s Safety Survey.  

Working closely with partners across government and the private sector, we took an innovative approach to shaping how we measure Violence Against Women and Girls to support the Government’s Safer Street Mission. We also worked closely with the OSR so that the estimates of crime from the Crime Survey for England and Wales were successful in regaining ‘Accredited Official Statistics’ status.  

We linked data assets, including the Public Health Data Asset, to monitor health inequalities. Through funding from a range of partners, we have linked NHS datasets with census, social security benefits and HMRC data to understand the interplay between health and work. The analyses show the impact of a range of NHS interventions, including bariatric surgery, NHS talking therapies and endometriosis diagnosis, on people’s earnings and employment. These analyses have directly helped inform government spending in areas with high levels of economic inactivity.

The Sudlow Review was launched, co-commissioned by the then National Statistician, Sir Ian Diamond and Sir Chris Whitty, to look at the UK health data landscape. It set out a bold vision for overcoming the barriers and inefficiencies that currently delay the safe and secure use of health data to improve lives. The review makes the case for the criticality of linked data infrastructure to drive positive outcomes for the public. 

Ambitious – Inclusive, quality, coherence, accessibility and timeliness of our core statistics 

Priority Outcome 3 – Top quality published statistics on prices, GDP and employment. 

To enable urgent quality improvements to the social surveys feeding economic statistics, we received additional funding from HM Treasury in 2024/25. This was invested in increasing our interviewer numbers, implementation of changes to bolster retention, and increasing incentives for survey respondents. This has helped to improve performance on key surveys, but we need to do more to improve performance across our full survey portfolio – a theme which is covered in our plans for 2025/26. We are hopeful that our plan to recover social surveys, including focused resources in this area, will help us continue to improve response rates in an increasingly challenging environment. Despite advances in administrative data, surveys remain essential to the production of core economic statistics. 

The Blue Book and Pink Book were successfully published in October 2024, including the latest data and with a full rebasing to 2022 to ensure continued accurate measurement of the UK economy. Alongside this were the production of regular publications of the Quarterly National Accounts, Sector Accounts, Balance of Payments and related releases. We also published a range of economic statistics showing the UK’s relationship with the rest of the world, including UK Trade, Foreign Direct Investment and Mergers and Acquisitions. This work included moving some aspects of production from legacy systems.. In addition to the annual and quarterly releases we also published monthly economic indicators and GDP estimates, with a weekly real time indicators release completing the picture of how various areas of the economy were performing. 

We delivered a full redevelopment of Research and Development (R&D) statistics, including significant improvements to sample, methods, concepts, systems, and the use of administrative data. This resulted in fuller coverage of the level and type of UK R&D activity to inform the Government’s mission on economic growth. 

Each month, the ONS and HM Treasury jointly produce vital public sector finance statistics on taxation and public spending and monitor the government’s performance against its fiscal targets. The ONS has produced analysis in line with the Chancellor’s new fiscal rules, including the investment rule based on Public Sector Net Financial Liabilities (introduced in 2016). Beyond monthly bulletins, statistical improvements such as enhancing central government debt interest data and updating classifications of public sector bodies have been made. 

ONS also produces statistics on consumer and business prices and the housing market on a monthly basis. In 2024/25 we made substantial progress in moving our house price production system off legacy technology, addressed the recommendations of an OSR review into producer prices, and introduced new and innovative methods for deriving key deflators using administrative data and multilateral methods. We also began the regular quarterly publication of our new Household Costs Indices.  

The Prices Transformation Project delivered a wide range of changes in 2024/25, which significantly reduced reliance on aged infrastructure and increased the resilience, sustainability and efficiency of consumer prices monthly production. The changes also allow for the easier implementation of new methods, a new classification structure that will allow the better use of administrative data, and new Northern Ireland rents data. The capability to use scanner data was delivered in March 2025 and, following extensive stakeholder engagement, it was decided to dual run alongside the existing methods for a year to allow further time for quality assurance and to lay the foundations for going live with the singular new approach in March 2026. 

The Public Services Productivity Review was delivered successfully to target in March 2025. This once in a generation review improves the productivity measures of UK public services to aid government policy and decision making, delivering new methods, systems and a strategic roadmap for incorporating the improvements into the UK National Accounts as part of the ONS’s wider System of National Accounts 2025 implementation. The Review has also provided ground-breaking insights into how public sector workers spend their time, management practices in the public sector, and their views on the opportunities for, and barriers to, use of automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Priority Outcome 4 – Greater linked data capabilities that result in faster, evidence-based decisions across government. 

The Integrated Data Programme has now delivered an Integrated Data Service (IDS) with Digital Economy Act (2017) (DEA) accreditation for data provision. The service offers a secure, cloud-native analytic hub, with a critical mass of valuable data (100+ datasets available), including systematic linkages between the most sensitive personal and business data (such as census records, tax records and health records). 

Analysis of this data in year has supported a range of innovative analytical projects feeding into the Government’s missions, covering four distinct areas critical to growth, as well as analysis in the areas of health, crime, energy, and opportunity. 

However, the programme has faced numerous challenges which were recently reflected in a Gateway Review by the National Infrastructure Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) in March 2025. The review recommended urgent action to address a lack of central Government sponsorship for the programme,  clarify the relationship with the National Data Library (NDL) and unblock permissions from Other Government Departments (OGDs) to grant access to datasets for analysis. Since this time, the Spending Review 2025 (SR25) recognised the challenges faced by the programme and sets out the need to focus the IDS’s assets on ONS priorities, such as labour market and population statistics.

The Secure Research Service (SRS) also forms part of our service to researchers and analysts. It is ONS’s well-established Trusted Research Environment, which is also accredited as a DEA processor for the provision of data. 

The SRS is used by hundreds of organisations across the UK, with approximately 1,900 accredited researchers working on about 800 live projects. Academics make up around 55% of the user base, with government (25%) and private/third sector (20%) making up the rest. 

Sustainable – Building a sustainable and efficient business model 

Priority Outcome 5 – Modernised and sustainable digital infrastructure using a secure, modularised approach. 

Our large, cloud based, digital infrastructure is now recognised across government for its security, efficient design and scalability. We implemented AI in the ONS, including the successful roll out of Microsoft Co-pilot, development of the first ONS AI policy and an associated governance framework. We were also a significant contributor to the “AI Playbook for UK Government” recently published by the Cabinet Office.  

In addition to implementing a series of improvements to the stability of our website, we released previews to our new website platform that will better help users find, understand explore and act upon our data and statistics. We are also continuing our programme of legacy replacement to support the ongoing improvement of statistical quality and development of the new Statistical Business Register private beta. 

As part of the ambition to roll out a more standardised, transparent, and empowering way of working in ONS, a proof-of-concept study was commissioned in 2024/25 to embed operational quality excellence. A pilot was undertaken in the Health, Population and Methods (HPaM), and Economic Social and Environmental Statistics (ESEG) groups, as a cross-office delivery supported by an external consultancy company This involved the implementation of digital artefacts and ways of working. The pilot identified key benefits for operational quality, efficiency and process improvement, and an exercise is now underway to understand the resourcing requirements and implications of implementing this approach across the organisation, as well as ensuring the link with our wider quality management framework and our ambitions under our quality statistics priority outcomes. 

ONS is also improving the transparency, resilience and efficiency of statistical production by transforming our production pipelines. We are replacing complex manual processes with automated ones that follow good practice from software engineering. This makes sure that processes are fully reproducible and easy to audit and maintain. We have a rolling programme of pipeline transformation activity as we move statistical processing from legacy systems to modern cloud infrastructure. Major projects underway include transformation of Capital Stocks, the Monthly Business Survey and Construction Survey, and Population Statistics processing. Transformed pipelines are much easier to maintain and bring with them large efficiency savings in terms of runtime, setup and assurance. 

We have also reviewed our quality framework to ensure more visibility and impact of the modernisation of our digital infrastructure on the quality of our data and statistics, to ensure that prioritisation decisions address quality risks and issues identified throughout the data lifecycle. This will be an area of focus for our resources in future business planning.  

Inclusive – Building inclusivity into everything we do

Over the course of 2024/25, ONS colleagues met with delegations from the national statistics offices of Australia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Namibia, Ghana, Rwanda and Japan. Discussions covered a range of topics of mutual interest, sharing of best practice, and bilateral programmes of cooperation. This work is in support of international cooperation and best practice, primarily funded through Official Development Assistance budgets. 

In October 2024, on behalf of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Ian Diamond signed an arrangement on statistical cooperation with Eurostat. This agreement will enhance collaboration between our offices, with an initial focus on the transfer of GDP data as well as other areas of economic statistics. The arrangement is a living document and there is a possibility of adding additional areas in future if agreed with Eurostat.  

We continue to progress the Pandemic Preparedness Toolkit project and this year we began working with international partners in Nepal, Malawi and Argentina. The toolkit, funded through Wellcome, is being co-developed using the breadth of experiences across the partnership. It aims to unlock the potential of national statistics offices to add value to health surveillance systems during future infectious disease outbreaks. 

The ONS was awarded “highly commended” in the Best Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative category at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Wales Awards. Our submission highlighted the incredible work to develop and embed the inclusion, culture and wellbeing dashboard, our inclusive interactive experience, and ‘hold to account’ sessions all of which aim to further our strategic principle of ‘Inclusivity’.

Performance monitoring metrics

The metrics we use to routinely monitor performance are disaggregated by Priority Outcomes and complement the progress reporting against our strategic objectives (as set out above) through our internal governance. Our performance against the metrics for 2024/25 is set out below. Some of the metrics were developed for 2024/25 and thus no historic comparable data is available.  The metrics as they currently exist have been used to assess trend rather than absolute targets. As we continue to review and refine our plans for 2025/26, we intend to introduce a revised set of performance metrics to help us monitor our core priority outputs. 

Priority Outcome 1: An enhanced reputation and trustworthiness for delivering independent and high-quality statistics and analysis

Priority Outcome 2: Top quality published statistics on health, population and migration

Priority Outcome 3: Top quality published statistics on prices, GDP and employment

The below covers both priority outcome 2 and priority outcome 3. 

Priority Outcome 4: Greater linked data capabilities that result in faster, evidence-based decisions across government 

Priority Outcome 5: Modernised and sustainable digital infrastructure using a secure, modularised approach 

Looking ahead

Our Priority Outcomes have been further refined for 2025/26 as follows: 

1. An enhanced reputation for delivering trusted, relevant, independent statistics and analysis. 
2. Top quality published statistics on prices, GDP, the labour market, household finances, public sector and population (including births, deaths and migration).
3. Support the Government’s missions and other users by maximising the use of our statistics and responding to evidence gaps where we are uniquely positioned to do so.
4. Greater linked data capabilities that result in faster, evidence-based decisions across government.

This revised articulation of our core outcomes further sharpens our focus on our most important outputs. The Outcomes are presented in the 2025/26 Strategic Business Plan. 

The recently published Devereux Review will impact the original planned deliverables for 2025/26. Changes to resource allocations is likely to lead to a re-statement of the 2025/26 ONS Business Plan in light of the new context.  

Resources and organisation

Financial management

Throughout 2024/25 we complied with all HM Treasury expenditure control approvals processes and managed the standard annual fiscal events within the required timescales. We again successfully managed within our financial control totals as set by Parliament for the year – including in relation to core funding and all programmes. 2024/25 was the last year of Spending Review 2021 (SR21) which provided us with a multi-year financial settlement over the three financial years 2022/23 through to 2024/25. During the year we have worked closely with HM Treasury colleagues through the multi-phased Spending Review 2025 (SR25) processes. In October 2024 we received confirmation of our funding settlement for 2025/26 through SR25 Phase 1. This settlement provides us with certainty of funding for 2025/26 at the same overall level as 2024/25 (subject to adjustments at the Main and Supplementary Estimates). 

The overall financial position for 2024/25 remained tight which required the organisation to again focus on its core priorities through business planning with efficiencies continuing to play an important role in ensuring sustainability. Actions taken in 2023/24 to reduce our cost base meant that we entered 2024/25 with an affordable business plan and the mandated workforce cap in place for the first half of the year further drove down costs as the organisation worked toward its workforce target. Whilst we made significant progress in achieving the mandated end of year workforce target within the first six months of 2024/25 this had an impact on our ability to fully deliver against our objectives.  

Our 2024/25 business planning processes again redistributed funding from lower to higher order priority activities continuing the trend across the SR21 period. Our Efficiency Savings Plan delivered efficiencies and cost savings of £12.8m in 2024/25, exceeding our target of £12.1m. Overall across the SR21 period we have reduced our workforce (expressed in Full Time Equivalent [FTE] terms) from a peak of 5,509 on 31 March 2023 to 5,049 on 31 March 2025 and have delivered sustained cost reductions of £39.9m by the end of 2024/25. This has been essential to enable us to live within our means particularly in the context of significant inflationary pressures over the three years including on our primary cost driver which is staff salaries. 

Financial outcome

Our total net resource expenditure increased from £362.9m in 2023/24 to £374.8m in 2024/25. This figure is net of income but includes ring-fenced resource expenditure (depreciation). The commensurate budget for 2024/25 with which to compare was £385.5m. The increase year–on–year is due largely to additional funding approved by HM Treasury for expenditure on surveys. 

Taking the position gross of income receipts our resource expenditure figures increased from £397.5m in 2023/24 to £403.7m in 2024/25. This increase overall reflects the uplift in expenditure set out above, but the gross position has also been impacted by a lower overall level of income (and associated expenditure) in 2024/25 compared with 2023/24. Our income has decreased from £34.6m in 2023/24 to £28.9m in 2024/25 due to one off funding being received in 2023/24; this included Covid-19 related income.  

Our total net capital expenditure increased from £23.4m in 2023/24 to £25.8m in 2024/25. The commensurate budget for 2024/25 with which to compare was £28.5m. The overall increase in capital expenditure is due to additional investment on in–house intangible software assets and investment in a new property lease in Manchester including fit out costs.  

Our capital expenditure is made up of £17.5m investment in development of assets, with £8.3m of expenditure classified as capital expenditure under the European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA10). The latter is not classified as capital expenditure under International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).  

Further information on our financial outturn is provided in the Financial Summary section and in our Accounts in chapter 4. 

People capability

Throughout 2024/25, the Authority has continued to mature its skills development approach to focus on ensuring we have the right skills in the right place at the right time, as well as building critical skills for a sustainable future. 

Building on our previous work we have continued to embed a strategic skills development approach to develop an ‘agile capacity and capability’ programme of work. This reframed our offer with a stronger focus on developing and deploying critical skills to deliver against the Authority’s priority statistical outputs. This approach enables a more agile, informed and efficient mechanism for developing and deploying talent in the organisation; capturing the skills our people have, aligning this insight to critical gaps, and moving talent to the right place at the right time to build more sustainable deployment routes which ensure delivery against the highest priorities. 

In 2024, the Authority redefined the behaviours and core and critical skills we need to deliver our priority outcomes and launched a new process to provide detailed insight on our capabilities across the organisation. 

The Authority continues to invest in entry talent pipelines with a particular focus on internally retaining and reskilling for skills that are critical to the delivery of statistical outputs. The routes for this include Fast Stream, apprenticeships and the government-wide Life Chances schemes. In 2024 we also launched a flagship degree apprenticeship ‘BSc (Hons) Applied Data, Statistical and Economic Analysis’, in partnership with Cardiff Metropolitan University to provide a bespoke route to building our critical skills. We also continue to build and mature our capability approach for the Government Analysis Function, with a strong baseline learning and skills offer, and the Analysis Function Career Framework, as well as the delivery of a high–level workforce data product.   

Our approach for cultivating a positive employee experience is also vital for critical skills development and retention. When compared to last year, the People Survey 2024 results show a downward trend in all themes apart from the My Work and Learning & Development themes which maintained scores of 74 per cent and 54 per cent respectively. In most cases the decreases have been by less than 5 percentage points (pp). 

When compared to our organisational People Survey results these themes are down by 1pp and 3pp respectively which may be an indication of sentiment following the changes to hybrid working. The Leadership & Managing Change theme most strongly reflects sentiment regarding our organisational culture and operating conditions over the last year by decreasing 6pp to 43 per cent, where the Civil Service average is 53 per cent. Much of the free text feedback for the People Survey last year was linked to the way we reintroduced office attendance to align with a cross Civil Service agreement. Although this score remains above pre-pandemic levels and we have previously targeted action in this space in response to both the 2022 and 2023 People Survey results, we are continuing to bolster our support by developing Line Management and Leadership learning.

We have also considered the People Survey results in line with the organisational context and so at a corporate level we are converging on 3 specific areas of focus to drive improvements, these are: Effective Leadership, Highlighting Outcomes and Simplifying Conversations. Targeted communications are already underway and meanwhile Directorates continue to own and develop bespoke action plans in response to local level results through People Action Groups.  

Furthermore, the recently published Devereux Review identified cultural issues within the Authority that were seen as contributing to its performance challenges. The Authority has responded that it is determined that this will mark a turning point for the organisation as it prioritises its key statistics and focuses on developing an open culture in the organisation that encourages challenge.  

Corporate responsibility

Anti-corruption and anti-bribery measures

The Authority is committed to upholding high standards of honesty and integrity in all its activities and continues to work on its commitments regarding counter-fraud, bribery and corruption. All staff are required to act with honesty, integrity and to safeguard the public resources they are responsible for, with mandatory training (provided by Civil Service Learning) on counter fraud, bribery, and corruption. The Authority operates a zero-tolerance approach to fraud, with all cases of irregularity investigated and dealt with appropriately.  

The Authority’s Counter Fraud Team maintains a Fraud, Bribery and Corruption policy available to all staff via the internal intranet. The policy establishes clear expectations in terms of roles and responsibilities and what processes they need to follow to report any concerns regarding fraud, bribery, and corruption.  There is a Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Strategy to support the Authority in minimising fraud, bribery, and corruption over the next five years. The team undertakes a fraud risk assessment, involving fraud workshops and training sessions, to identify where the Authority may be susceptible to fraud and to ensure proportionate controls are in place. 

All members of the Counter Fraud Team are associate members of the Government Counter Fraud Profession and Accredited Counter Fraud Technicians. The Counter Fraud Team carries out an assessment against the Government Functional Standards – GovS 013: Counter Fraud. These assessments are reviewed bi-annually and contribute to the counter fraud workplan and supports the identification of proactive fraud work led by the Counter Fraud Officer, such as targeted training and in-depth reviews. Counter fraud reports are provided at least twice a year to the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee. The Counter Fraud Team has not identified any material fraud for the period. 

All senior leaders in the organisation – interpreted here as members of the Senior Civil Service – are required to complete a declaration of interests survey and confirm a statement on related parties. In addition, Commercial staff will complete a conflict-of-interest declaration for major procurements (Gold and Silver contracts). All employees must declare all relevant outside interests. 

An ongoing register is maintained of all hospitality and gifts offered to Authority staff. All staff are made aware of the civil service rules and the internal policy around acceptance of hospitality or gifts including the requirement to declare any offer. This register was presented to the Authority’s Audit and Risk Assurance Committee in June 2025 to demonstrate adherence to the policy.  

Other information in the public interest

Responding to members of the public

There was one complaint in 2024/25 (2023/24 zero) about the Authority raised via the Parliamentary Ombudsmen. This complaint was not upheld and therefore no Ombudsman recommendations were issued.  

Whistleblowing arrangements

Whistleblowing has a clear legal basis, and a common approach is taken across the Civil Service. Our arrangements are in line with this approach and are considered to be effective; our low number of cases is in line with other departments of a similar size. The annual report on whistleblowing and related speak up activities has been presented to Audit and Risk Committee and whistleblowing is also discussed with the UK Statistics Authority Board. 

It is important the Authority’s work environment offers a safe, inclusive, and supportive place to work; where everyone feels comfortable to speak up if they experience or witness anything that concerns them at work. The Authority’s Whistleblowing and Raising a Concern policy provides assurance on the visibility, accessibility and understanding of the approach to ‘speaking up’ and is a core element of the Authority’s Speak Up Framework.  The Speak Up Framework enables navigation between the Resolution Policy for concerns related to inappropriate behaviour and unfair treatment, and the Whistleblowing policy for concerns related to breaches of the Civil Service Code, suspected illegal activity, or fraud. Several communication and engagement events take place throughout the year to maintain awareness of the Framework, including the annual ‘Speak Up’ week in the autumn, championed by a senior leader and consisting of all colleague communications and the provision of learning interventions. 

Respect for human rights

UKSA fully complies with the Human Rights Act 1998.  

The realisation of human rights correlates with the availability of sound official statistics. Statisticians play a critical role in supporting evidence- based policy and measuring civil, economic, political, and social rights. In accordance with internationally accepted standards, starting with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the dissemination of relevant information is essential to meet peoples’ right to information and delivering on related entitlements to trustworthy statistics. Upholding rights, such as the rights to privacy and to be registered as well as the rights of statisticians themselves is vital to ensure robustness and independence in official statistical systems. 

The Authority recognises these challenges and has established a clear Statement of Principles to ensure that we: 

• exercise our statutory responsibilities in a fair, proportionate and accountable way, with due regard for principles of privacy and appropriate degrees of internal and external scrutiny;
• work in a collaborative, transparent and fair manner with data suppliers, civil society, and the public, responding to any concerns or opportunities as they arise; and   
• reinforce our full accountability to the UK Parliament and the devolved legislatures in exercising our statutory responsibilities.   

Researchers, statisticians and data scientists should demonstrate compliance with the UK Statistics Authority’s ethical principles through use of the Ethics Self-Assessment Tool and/or consultation with the National Statistician’s Data Ethics Advisory Committee.  The UK Statistics Authority’s Centre for Applied Data Ethics was established in February 2021 with the aim of being a world leader in the field of applied data ethics. The Centre has developed an ethics self-assessment tool that enables staff to quickly assess their use of data against the UKSA’s ethical principles and identify and mitigate ethical risk.

The Authority also recognises the ways in which internationally accepted and domestic legislation provide further effects to the human rights, protections, and freedoms guaranteed to its workforce. The Authority is committed to upholding the key human rights that intersect with the employment relationship through workplace policies and practices developed in collaboration with its workforce and official consultation channels to maintain the principles of dignity, fairness, respect, and equality. Examples include, but are not limited to: 

• maintaining the confidentiality and privacy of colleagues’ voluntarily-disclosed personal information, as per General Data Protection Regulation principles
• ensuring colleagues are aware of their right to join one of our formally recognised unions 
• underpinning our work with the commitments outlined in our Inclusion and Diversity Plan that extend over the Authority’s remit as an employer and leader within the statistics profession within government 
• identifying and overcoming perceived biases and disadvantages through the completion of an Equality Impact Assessment where required.

As an employer, our inclusion and diversity plan, recruitment practices, and wider employment policies all fully comply with the Human Rights Act.  Inclusion is a strategic priority for the Authority, and further information on our policies and practice in this space can be found in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion section.   

Sustainable development

It is the policy of the UK Statistics Authority (including the Office for National Statistics, its Executive Office) to conduct its operations in a manner that reflects a commitment to the protection of the environment, embeds the principles and priorities of the Government’s sustainable development strategy and complies with environmental laws and regulations.

Our Sustainable Development Policy states this will be met by  

• achieving continual improvement in environmental performance; 
• considering the environmental impact of our operations and prevent pollution and reduce carbon emissions;  
• aiming to meet the targets (KPIs) established by the Greening Government Commitments;  
• meeting all environmental legislative requirements; and 
• complying with sustainable reporting requirements  

Environmental performance

The Government’s Greening Commitments (GGC) have challenged us to reduce the environmental impact of our estate and operations.  This section and the table below present our progress against these measures and targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon and waste, on a yearly basis with the goal of net zero by 2050. Please note the current GGC period is 2021 to 2025, with our baseline period set from 2017/2018.

There was a change to flight data requirements in 2022/23, from number of flights to kilometres travelled on international flights. To ensure accurate comparison, we have converted the baseline figure into kilometres to allow tracking through the period.  

Summary for 2024/2025

The table above show that in the year 2024/25 the Authority failed to meet its targets on international flights. This needs to be set in the context of our funding through Official Development Assistance for international work. 

Reduce our emissions

The Authority has been tasked with reducing its overall emissions by 38% and direct emissions by 43%, as part of the GGC commitments.

The 2024/25 data show a 63% reduction in GHG Emissions and an 87% reduction in Direct Building Emissions. This trend can be attributed to reducing the size of our estate and sustainability investments carried out in recent years. 

The GGC also challenges the Authority to reduce domestic flights by 30% against the new baseline figures from 2017/2018. The Authority has a travel policy which mandates that the cheapest method of transport should be employed for any journey, which could encourage domestic air travel between the Southeast, Northeast and Scotland and Northern Ireland. The 2024/25 period has seen a marked decrease in domestic flights, well ahead of target. This has largely been attributed to greater accountability and approvals of domestic flights. In reference to international flights, there is an increase in travel overseas due to a large expansion in the international division within ONS. 

Improve our waste management

All information communication technology (ICT) equipment is disposed of via an established contract which helps ensure that all redundant ICT equipment is re-used or recycled responsibly.

The Authority successfully reduced its overall waste by 68% against the baseline figures which target a reduction of 15%. The Authority has also reduced paper use by 73% which improves again on previous year’s figures. 

Water use

In 2024/2025, water consumption reduced by 41% against the baseline, exceeding the target of 8%. Despite seeing an increase in the number of colleagues attending each of our sites compared to last year, we continue to see further reductions largely due to investing in water saving equipment within W/Cs and showers and better leak detection. 

International flights

In relation to our international flights, ONS was successful in receiving its own Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding as part of SR21; this saw its funding increase with a primary objective of increasing the number of countries ONS supports with statistical capacity building and modernisation. The expansion of the programme has therefore resulted in the increase in the amount of travel that the business undertakes to support development activity. Other international projects have also been onboarded by ONS in recent years. Wellcome funding for Climate and Health (Commenced February 2022) and the Pandemic Preparedness toolkit (commenced April 2023) has resulted in an increased amount of travel. In addition, as part of maintaining international relationships the international relations team will also travel to developed countries as part of ongoing engagement.  

Over the next few years, we expect to see the amount of travel to increase further.  

The upcoming period from 2025-2030 will be re-baselined by DEFRA. 

Sustainable procurement

The Authority’s standard Terms and Conditions requires all suppliers to comply with our Sustainable Development Policy, which includes, but is not limited to, the conservation of energy, water, wood, paper and other resources, a reduction in waste, the phasing out of the use of ozone depleting substances and the minimisation of the release of greenhouse gases, volatile organic compounds and other substances damaging to health and the environment. 

Building on changes to procurement policy and as set out in PA2023, the Authority has been able to fully embrace social value within a tender, placing it as a significant, mandated element of any evaluation. Key to the success of the implementation of social value is the ongoing work with our supply base to develop specifications and requirements that have sustainability at their heart.  

The Authority extensively uses Public Sector Framework arrangements collaboratively managed by government organisations such as the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) and the Government Digital Services’ (GDS). The CCS and GDS frameworks aim to encourage small and medium sized enterprises and local businesses to bid for work with support available to them if required. The Authority continues to support the engagement of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) across our contract base.

The requirements of the Government Buying Standards (GBS) are issued to the Commercial Services team on a quarterly basis via the Commercial Update, which is a comprehensive review of all Procurement news and legislation. The quarterly updates also provide information from across the Commercial Team such as data from the Cabinet Office approved Commercial Pipeline as these assist the Team in reviewing opportunities that may be of interest to smaller or local business, ensuring appropriate timetables and market engagement are utilised. 

Food and catering

All contractors are required to adhere to our Sustainable Development and Crown Commercial Services (CCS) policies.  Our catering services are procured as part of our Total Facilities Management contract which is delivered through a CCS framework. This promotes the use of local products from local suppliers to keep the tractor miles down. To continue to eradicate the use of single use plastics, takeaway beverage cups were removed from all outlets at The Authority sites at the end of 2024/25, which should reduce our annual waste by 3 tonnes and save up to £17,000 in cost avoidance. 

Sustainable construction

The Authority’s refurbishment and construction works are designed and built with the objective of improving the performance of the estate, and in so doing contribute to the achievement of Greening Government Commitments targets. For example, this has included the installation of LED sensor light fittings as standard, low flow taps and carpets with recycled backing. All contractors are required to complete a sustainability questionnaire used as part of the tender process and are required to source materials in line with the Government Buying Standards (GBS). 

Our Evolving the Workplace programme has reused existing furniture where possible, and any surplus has been given to community organisations and charities with any residual items planned for sustainable recycling through specialist providers. 

Biodiversity

The Authority complies with The Environment (Wales) Act 2016, Section 6 on Biodiversity. It does not have any responsibility for Sites of Special Scientific Interest but takes such action as it can to promote, conserve and enhance biodiversity for example by specification of environmentally friendly measures in its ground’s maintenance contract. 

Climate change adaptation

The Authority’s Sustainable Development Action Plan considers the long-term implications of its operations in relation to climate change. This Action Plan is updated yearly and assesses any risks of climate change, how the estate may require necessary adaptation, is robust in the face of changing weather, extreme events and sea level rises from climate change. Business Continuity uses scenario-based exercises to plan for events including any potential effects of extreme weather on our estate. 

Sustainable governance and decision making

Our Sustainable Development Policy and Action Plan are embedded within our overall governance and decision making. Since 2021, when our Environmental Champions’ Group was initiated (EnSus), many improvement projects have been identified, elevated and presented to senior management for approval. 

Rural proofing

Our estate is not positioned in rural areas, nor do the estate’s operational policies affect rural areas.

Task Force on climate-related financial disclosure statement

The Authority has reported on climate-related financial disclosures consistent with HM Treasury’s TCFD-aligned disclosure application guidance which interprets and adapts the framework for the UK public sector. The Authority has complied with the TCFD recommendations and recommendations disclosures around: 

• Governance
• Metrics and targets 
• Risk management

This is in line with the central governments TCFD-aligned disclosure implementation timetable. The Authority plans to make disclosures for Strategy, Risk Management and Metrics and Targets disclosures (a) and (c) in future reporting periods in line with the central government implementation timetable.

In 2015 the FSB established the TCFD to develop recommendations for more effective climate-related disclosures to promote more informed decisions and, in turn, enable stakeholders to understand better the concentrations of carbon-related assets and exposures to climate-related risks.

Recommendations published by the Task Force in 2017 proposed: 

• four widely adoptable recommendations across four thematic areas (Governance, Strategy, Risk Management, and Metrics and Targets)
• eleven recommended disclosures structured around the thematic areas, representing the core elements of the organisation’s operations. The disclosures are intended to interlink and inform each other  
• general and sector-specific guidance for applying the framework
• seven key principles for effective disclosure:
  • relevant  
  • specific and complete  
  • clear, balanced, and understandable
  • consistent over time  
  • comparable across the sector, industry, or portfolio 
  • reliable, verifiable, and objective
  • timely

The TCFD recommendations have been adopted by a range of organisations in the private sector and this document will demonstrate the adoption as part of the public sector adoption as part of global best practice.

Governance

During 2024/25 an Integrated Performance Report was provided to the Portfolio and Investment Committee (a subcommittee of the Executive Committee) for each of its meetings, which includes performance tracking of our GGCs. Following changes to the executive governance of The Authority, from 2025/26 this information will be provided directly to the Executive Committee periodically. Please see pages 50-51 (of the PDF) for reporting structure in 2024/25.

In terms of strategic risks there are no strategic risks relating to sustainability and environment including climate change.

The UKSA Sustainable Development Policy is one of the main supporting documents and is reviewed and signed off annually. 

 Our objectives (for the period 2020-2025) are to:  

• Reduce carbon emissions from fuel consumption by our buildings. 
• Reduce carbon emissions from business operations, such as travel and paper use. Reduce water consumption. 
• Reduce, reuse, or recycle all waste. 
• Incorporate sustainable development elements into our purchasing and contract management strategies; for example, consideration of life cycle, end-of-life and appropriate disposal of products and goods.
• Incorporate ISO14001 principles across The Authority’s Estate.  
• Meet the guidance requirements set out under Section 6 of the Environment (Wales) Action 2016 Part 1 on Biodiversity. 
• Encourage volunteering opportunities within the local community.

Metrics and targets 

The Authority employs various metrics to assess our impacts and gauge our vulnerability to climate change. Our established metrics, including energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, are aligned with the Sustainability Reporting Guidance and the Financial Reporting Manual (FReM). The climate targets are set by the GGCs. 

Please see Environmental Performance section for further information on UKSA climate performance, metrics and targets.

Risk Management 

The organisational strategy identifies its principal purpose as providing “High quality data and analysis to inform the UK, improve lives and build the future.” Therefore, The Authority’s risk appetite has been set by the Authority Board in relation to risks that would impact on the quality and access of outputs and/or its reputation. 

The reporting structure for 2024/25 can be found on page 50 to 51 of the PDF.

Risk management is an integral part of UKSA planning and decision making. The UKSA Risk Management Framework sets out the principles, concepts and accountabilities for effective risk management across the department and is aligned to the Orange Book – Management of Risk, Principles and Concepts 2023 and Managing Public Money.

Although there are no strategic risks relating to sustainability and environment, we manage all our risks with a variety of processes and tools which are aligned to the Orange Book Risk Control Framework and three-line defence model.  

Further information on risk management can be found in the Governance Statement.

Implementation  

The UK Statistics Authority will meet these aims and objectives by the means set out in our Sustainable Development Action Plan.  

Sustainable development action plan

The Sustainable Development Action Plan (SDAP) has been created to support the Authority’s Sustainable Development Policy by identifying the actions that the Authority needs to take to comply with Policy and providing a means for tracking the actions. Central Government expects an SDAP from all departments and their executive agencies. This is to ensure that the strategic actions of the organisation intend to integrate Sustainable Development (SD) into its decision-making and everyday operations are recorded. The Authority maintains a SDAP which is reviewed yearly.

Emma Rourke
Acting National Statistician
UK Statistics Authority
July 2025