Annex B: Strategic risks

Trust and independence

The UKSA lacks the necessary oversight, control, and assurance to safeguard and promote the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good or, is susceptible to activities which challenge the independence, of the UKSA.

Optimising value for users, aligned with our strategic priorities

Due to:

• insufficient and inconsistent engagement leading to lack of understanding of user needs;
• the lack of a clearly articulated and embedded user needs prioritisation framework;
• inadequate mechanisms to reflect prioritised user needs in ongoing business planning and resource allocation;
• ineffective evaluation of how well outputs are meeting user needs; and
• poor communication back to users on prioritisation decisions.

Strategic direction

The ONS does not have a clearly understood and articulated set of objectives and outcomes, or effective internal processes to prioritise and/or plan strategically. This includes not implementing plans and/or failure to continuously improve.

Finance

The UKSA does not utilise effectively the funding secured in the 2025 Spending Review, deliver efficiencies and/or does not have the right internal processes to enable sustainable and controlled spending aligned to its stated strategic objectives across the SR period.

Security and data protection

A wide range of hostile actors use cyber and physical means to target UK Government data, which is seen as an attractive target; the resources and capabilities of such actors vary. Hostile actors constantly probe the UKSA external security landscape to identify vulnerabilities and/or poor security controls, information mismanagement and/or employees operating outside of policies, which can be exploited.

People

The UKSA fails to implement a focused, cross-organisational approach to improving employee experience and organisational capability, with people policies and practices applied inconsistently across the organisation and resources unaligned to organisational priorities.

Communications

The UKSA does not fully understand key stakeholders and does not apply an effective and proactive external communications approach with clear articulation of our role, ambition and core narrative for use consistently across channels to deliver high quality, messaging and support reputation. The UKSA does not have appropriate channels and dissemination tools to communicate externally with our range of audiences.

Quality economic statistics

Due to a lack of availability of quality data, processes, methodological approaches, resource and skills, and robust plans that the end-to-end statistical process does not enable quality outputs.

Census 2031

Due to delayed, misaligned or insufficient mobilisation of critical capacity and capability, including key supply-chain partners; inadequate early design validation, end-to-end integration and rehearsal-based testing; limitations on our ability to adapt statistical and operational designs to a changing operating context across the census lifecycle; or external factors such as public behaviours; or inadequacy of alternative data flows.

Quality population statistics

Due to a lack of availability of quality data, processes, methodological approaches, resource and skills, and robust plans that the end-to-end statistical process does not enable quality outputs.

Data Governance

As a result of:

• inadequate data policies, lack of ownership, engagement, implementation or understanding of data policies, processes; and
• lack of accountability and governance for all data collected, processed, produced or shared by the UKSA.

Technological infrastructure

As a result of ineffective IT operational processes, legacy infrastructure, a lack of understanding of target technological architecture, a lack of risk based, realistic plans to address legacy systems, and a resistance to change across the UKSA.