Annex C: Strategic risks
Independence, trustworthiness and impact
The risk that the statutory independence of the UK Statistics Authority is, or is perceived to be, compromised by political interests or commercial relationships, and/or the trust in the Authority is eroded.
User needs
The risk that the Authority does not optimise its ability to inform policy and decision making for the public good. This includes focusing on where the Authority is uniquely placed to provide evidence and achieving an appropriate balance between regular statistical production and informing new and emerging policy needs.
Delivery of strategic ambition
The risk that the Authority is unable to ensure that appropriate investment and/or resource is allocated to the key activities that impact on the strategy, and/or is unable to respond with agility to new and emerging priorities.
Quality management framework
The risk that the Authority does not understand and/or manage the quality of its statistics through the implementation of a quality framework, does not communicate quality risks, and does not adequately monitor, report and act upon quality related concerns.
Security
The risk of an accidental information loss and/or a successful cyber or physical attack resulting in service disruption and/or a data breach.
Our people
The risk that the Authority is unable to develop, deploy and retain individuals with critical skills and is unable to retain a diverse and inclusive pool of talent. When recruitment is required externally, the Authority is unable to attract critical skills.
Our communications
The risk that the quality of the Authority communications is poor and therefore data is misunderstood or misused. And communications are not accessible, coherent and timely, and that the Authority is not seen as open and transparent (including in relation to the quality of our statistics) and is too inward-looking and unable to respond with agility. There is a risk that opportunities are not taken to proactively increase understanding of the Authority’s role and build trustworthiness.
Quality economic statistics
The risk that the Authority does not produce quality economic statistics (GDP, labour market and prices) that are reliable, timely and accurate and/or that we do not communicate changes to quality.
Quality population statistics
The risk that the Authority does not produce quality population statistics that are reliable, timely and accurate and/or that we do not communicate changes to quality.
Data access and usability
The risk that the Authority may be unable to influence both public and private sectors in delivering transformative data sharing arrangements. Such arrangements are crucial to:
- support the Authority’s role of facilitating increased sharing and linkage of data for research purposes that benefit the public good;
- support the Authority in obtaining regular and sustainable access to administrative data that is usable and of sufficient known quality to enable the production of statistics.
Technological resilience
The risk that the Authority technology estate (including third party suppliers, software, systems, services, and platforms) is unreliable, obsolescent, no longer supported or does not support the production of quality statistics.
Note that SR8 ‘Inclusivity in our statistics and analysis’ has been removed and this is considered business as usual in the quality of our statistics, particularly following the completion of the Inclusive Data Taskforce recommendations by the end of March 2025.