Annual report and accounts 2025/2026

Performance report

Chair’s foreword

The beginning of the 2025-26 financial year was a tough one for the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA).

Stakeholders were voicing concerns about the quality of ONS’ economic statistics. The jointly commissioned Independent Review by Sir Robert Devereux KCB concluded that there were deep-seated issues to be addressed at ONS. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) held challenging scrutiny hearings and were receiving concerns directly from staff about culture. The UKSA’s own regulatory arm, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) concluded in its systemic review that stakeholders were expressing widespread concern about the quality of survey data.

UKSA Leadership has been in transition throughout the year. Darren Tierney joined as the newly focused Permanent Secretary of the ONS on a two year contract in August 2025; we are nearing the end of the process to recruit a permanent National Statistician, and once they are announced the search for a permanent Chair will restart.

Turning an organisation around is not easy: stakeholders should not (and we are grateful that they do not) expect it to be quick. But the UKSA Board is satisfied that, a year on, the evidence is that ONS is rebuilding. The Permanent Secretary has tackled the difficulties by prioritising work strategically and engaged with users before doing so. He has listened to staff concerns and resolved the long running dispute about office attendance. He has recruited an excellent senior team and strengthened internal governance. As the report documents, there are many improvements in core statistical products.

This has not yet resulted in an improvement in the Head of Internal Audit’s Opinion, which remains at ‘limited’. In the Board’s view, it is clear there is a positive direction of travel. As well as the achievements already noted, fewer risks are out of appetite, and staff engagement scores have increased. It is the foundational capability that takes time to build and deploy, for example: addressing legacy technology; growing capability and capacity in areas including programme management, digital development, and methodology; rebuilding the capacity and capability of the interviewer field force; and improving productivity. ONS management must also continue to focus on implementing the findings of audits in a timely manner. The Head of Internal Audit has concluded that whilst there are weaknesses in governance, control and risk management we may be confident that the ONS is on a more stable footing and there is evidence of a positive trajectory.

In terms of what next, successful transitioning to the Transformed Labour Force Survey is a priority and we will be focusing on the path to that very shortly. Planning for the 2031 Census looms large in the coming year. We already know that we will have to work much harder to encourage people to respond and the Board has established a Population Statistics System subcommittee to provide assurance over plans for the 2031 Census and transformation of the population statistics system. Survey response generally is not only challenging but increasingly costly to deliver – and so the work on evaluating survey mandation on the most critical surveys is important. The arrival of Luke Ashton as Director General for Digital, Data and Technology will be essential to developing a credible approach to technology. Longer term there will be questions about whether it is right for ONS to stay as focused as it has become, or whether a National Statistics Institute should have a broader scope and ambition again. These will be questions for the UKSA Board in due course, once recovery is embedded and the permanent Chair and National Statistician are in place.

ONS is not, of course, the totality of the statistical system, although it has dominated public discourse for understandable reasons. Our regulatory arm has a particularly good story to tell this year. The revised Code of Practice was published in November 2025. Perhaps the biggest change is the addition of a section on ‘Standards for the Public Use of Statistics, Data and Wider Analysis’. This sets out that public bodies should make the evidence behind public claims equally accessible, explain it clearly and accurately, and use it with integrity and expert oversight so that people can scrutinise and trust it. Alongside the new Code, OSR’s updated strategy includes a commitment to work to strengthen trust and confidence in official statistics. Our interventions aim to do just that; providing a voice to stand up for statistics and represent the public, reporting publicly where we have concerns. Over the past year, we have firmly intervened publicly where statistics were misused, or used without enough explanation or context to inform high-profile public debate.

The Board has also made it a priority this year to build stronger engagement with the Chief Statisticians in the devolved governments; and with the leaders of the Government Statistical Service (GSS). We have been keen to understand the issues and opportunities and to support every part of the GSS. We are pleased that the four nations are working together to consider how comparability can be strengthened. We recognise that colleagues are working closely together on the respective Censuses. And we have been impressed by the GSS’s work with the Royal Statistical Society on the evolving role of the statistics professional. One consequence of the Devereux review, whatever the longer term approach to the breadth and depth of responsibilities of the National Statistician, is that support for the wider statistical system must have the bandwidth needed.

We recognise that in 2025/26, the focus on ONS recovery has diverted some of our attention away from other important work. In particular, the outcomes of the Statistics Assembly which was such a success in January 2025, have not yet received the focus and energy we would like to see. This was an important innovation proposed by Professor Denise Lievesley in her review of UKSA. There has been real progress, as identified in published updates, but there is much more to do on the four high level priorities: enabling easier data sharing throughout the system; improving data granularity; focusing on user engagement; and on harmonisation and coherence. This will be a key priority for the Board in the coming year, and of course will benefit from the focus of the incoming National Statistician driving and inspiring collaboration and innovation across the system.

The Board has benefited from the three new non-executive directors (NEDs) who joined in February 2025, bringing distinctive expertise in risk management, economic statistics and communications. In addition to the Board meetings themselves, NEDs engage individually within the ONS and across the system to offer their support and advice in line with their specific areas of expertise. We commissioned a more extensive board effectiveness review this year, to help us grow as a team and as individuals in supporting and challenging the system. I am grateful to Mo Baines, who led the review. She identified some areas where additional skills would have impact and we are taking account of this in the current round of NED recruitment. We were also pleased that she acknowledged the progress already being made by the Board as a whole.

I am confident that next year’s Annual Report will, reflect further progress at ONS and across the system. It should reflect increasing stability, with a permanent Chair and National Statistician in place.

In the meantime, thank you to everyone who has contributed to delivery and improvement across the statistical system this year. This encompasses the most visible people: Darren Tierney as Permanent Secretary, Professor Sir Ian Diamond who was the previous National Statistician and Emma Rourke who was the Acting National Statistician until December 2025, and Sir Robert Chote who chaired the Authority until September 2025. As important are the staff and producers across the system, but also users, stakeholders and of course the public and businesses whose data we collect. A modern democracy cannot function without good understanding about its economy, its people and society. As we have seen, it’s easy to take this for granted until things go wrong.

Penny Young
Interim Chair, UK Statistics Authority
June 2026

Chief Executive’s Report

I am pleased to present the UK Statistics Authority’s Annual Report and Accounts for the financial year ending March 2026. This report meets our statutory obligations and provides accountability and transparency for our use of public resources over the past year. It also provides an opportunity to reflect on the progress we have made and the challenges we have faced as an organisation.

Since taking up post as Permanent Secretary at the ONS last summer, my focus has been on strengthening the organisation so that it can operate as the trusted institution it needs to be – delivering high-quality, independent statistics that underpin the UK’s most critical economic and societal decisions and informing the public. When I joined, I was also clear that we needed to restore the sense of pride in working at the ONS, rebuild the trust staff have in senior leadership, strengthen our capacity to focus on the right priorities, and create the high-performing culture needed to deliver our recovery plans.

External scrutiny and reviews have laid bare the challenges we have faced as an organisation, they have also helped us better understand the challenges and causes and have provided the catalyst for moving the ONS forward. It was evident that we needed to put greater emphasis on improving performance and reestablishing a positive organisational culture, as well as acknowledging that ONS had become overstretched taking on too much discretionary activity and needed to prioritise.

As such, it has been vital that we have placed a renewed focus on quality over quantity. This has meant slimming down our portfolio so we can reallocate resources to our most vital statistics, while also preparing for the 2031 Census. Reducing our commitments across health, reconsidering our subnational statistics and international work, and further reducing the number of outputs we produce, has involved difficult decisions, but they have been necessary to ensure we can increase our focus and resourcing towards delivering a suite of core economic and population statistics. I have also worked with colleagues throughout the organisation to launch a new mission statement and leadership commitment, bringing clarity to who we are and what we do, and setting the tone on how we lead, work together and collaborate. These will both be central to our new long-term People Plan which will be launched shortly. We are already seeing the benefits in changes to our culture, with encouraging metrics through pulse surveys that colleagues feel more engaged in the organisation.

In June 2025, we published our Plan for our Economic Statistics and Surveys Portfolio, setting out to users the actions we are taking to prioritise our most critical statistics. In the last year, we have made real progress with these, completing over two thirds of our planned milestones. We have already started to deliver our action plan, noting that some substantial improvements have been underway for some time, including:

• Publishing our first Prices output using scanner data, representing a step change in how we measure inflation and giving us a more accurate, detailed picture of what people are buying, how much they’re buying and how prices are changing.
• Response levels on the Labour Force Survey (LFS) reaching levels similar to those seen pre-pandemic, with improvements in the quality and coherence of labour market statistics publicly recognised by the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility.
• All previously agreed major design changes to improve data quality now being implemented for the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) and we are gathering the evidence needed to understand when best to transition to the TLFS.
• Ending our reliance on the International Passenger Survey (IPS) to produce estimates of migration into and out of the United Kingdom, now drawing fully on administrative data.
• Publishing the Census 2031 Strategy for England and Wales, setting out how we will deliver a ‘digital first’ census, making the best use of administrative data and modern technology, whilst enabling participation for those who are digitally excluded.

With our recovery well underway, in May 2026 we published the first iteration ONS business plan for the 2026-2029 period, setting out how ONS will achieve our mission over the coming years. Whilst we’ve established real momentum in improving our statistics, we have also learned a lot about the complexity and scale of the change still required. The Business Plan sets out a disciplined, transparent approach to how we will sustain progress over the next three years and meet the ambitions we set out in our delivery plans. We will need to continue to confront issues candidly, focusing on quality over quantity, learning from errors, strengthening our systems, processes and skills, and introducing a responsible way of sequencing complex change.

As I reflect on the time I have spent at the ONS, I am proud of the extraordinary work colleagues across the organisation have done to put us in a stronger position to deliver our objectives. There is still much to do, but the direction is clear and progress is visible. By maintaining our focus on quality over quantity, I am confident that we can deliver the statistics the country needs and can rely on. I am also grateful to the UKSA Board, and to Penny Young as interim Chair, for the support and constructive challenge they have provided since I joined, helping to guide the organisation through a significant period of change.

Darren Tierney
Chief Executive and Accounting Officer
UK Statistics Authority
June 2026

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 Welsh Parliament 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 providing a firm evidence base for decision-making both inside and outside of government.

Functions

The Authority has responsibility for its two executive arms, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). It also provides professional oversight of the Government Statistical Service (GSS).

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 have traditionally been led by the National Statistician; however, over the past year, during a period of vacancy, and following the departure of the Acting National Statistician the Deputy Heads of the GSS have collectively supported its leadership with the Chair and the Board giving oversight.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS)

The ONS is the production arm of the Authority. It is the UK’s internationally recognised national statistical institute and largest independent producer of official statistics. The ONS produces data, statistics and analysis on a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. Sir Ian Diamond held the role of National Statistician and Chief Executive of the Authority until his resignation on 9 May 2025. Emma Rourke was appointed acting National Statistician and Chief Executive of the Authority from this date. Following the publication on 26 June 2025 of the review by Sir Robert Devereux into organisational performance and culture it was decided, at least temporarily, that the role of the National Statistician should be split between a Permanent Secretary with particular responsibility for the ONS and the National Statistician. Following the review, Darren Tierney was appointed Permanent Secretary and Accounting Officer for the UKSA on 11 August 2025. Following Emma Rourke vacating the role of interim National Statistician on 19 December 2025, Darren Tierney was directed by the Authority to take on the functions of the Chief Executive of the Authority. The National Statistician role is currently vacant with the recruitment process well advanced.

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 for 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 UK Statistics Authority Strategy

In October 2025 the Authority Board agreed new priorities for the statistical system, drawing upon feedback and observations from colleagues across the statistical system as well as users and producers of official statistics and recent independent reviews. In a letter from Penny Young, Interim Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, the Board set out strategic values, priorities and ambitions for the work of the statistical system, formally superseding the 2020-2025 strategy Statistics for the Public Good and providing a new strategic direction.

The letter identifies four values that colleagues across the statistical system will ground their work in, alongside the pillars of the Code of Practice for Statistics: 

• Openness, in engaging with users of statistics, with a willingness to listen, respond and collaborate. 
• Innovation, where this is a means to better serve our core purpose. 
• Efficiency, in how we prioritise, use and share resources and data. 
• Rigour, in our analysis, assessment and quality assurance. 

All components of the statistical system have their part to play in delivering these priorities, and the Board’s letter is supported by their respective strategies, visions and business plans. 

The Board expects to publish a longer-term updated Authority strategy in due course, led by a new Chair and a new National Statistician. 

The 2025/26 ONS Strategic Business Plan was developed in the context of the Authority’s previous ‘Statistics for the Public Good’ strategy. It is against this plan that this report is produced. Looking ahead – during 2025 a new strategic framework was developed in preparation for the 2026/27 ONS Business Plan, centred around the ONS’s new mission statement: ‘to deliver trustworthy, independent, high-quality statistics that underpin the UK’s most critical economic and societal decisions and inform the public’. Strategic outcomes and objectives were developed in turn which provide the organisation with its future direction. The mission, outcomes and objectives form the key elements of the ONS’s strategy. The 2026/27 Business Plan is the primary vehicle for ONS to share its future ambition and the baseline document against which the 2026/27 annual report will be produced.

In November 2025 the Office for Statistics Regulation published its strategy for 2026-2029, focused on strengthening trust and confidence in official statistics. 

The GSS vision statement, ‘Strength in Numbers’, celebrates how the GSS works together and sets out a vision for furthering cooperation and influence, as well as strengthening the identity of the GSS. An update on progress and areas that require further focus was published in February this year.

The 2025/26 ONS Strategic Business Plan

The ONS Strategic Business Plan for 2025/26 detailed how the ONS would deliver in line with the four strategic drivers set out in the (then extant) Authority strategy – Radical, Ambitious, Inclusive, and Sustainable, working in partnership with the GSS, data providers and the analytical and research community. It also set out the structure through which the ONS would deliver against its commitments, summarised through four priority outcomes:

1. An enhanced reputation for delivering trusted, relevant, independent statistics and analysis.
2. Top quality published statistics on prices, GDP (including trade and public sector finance), the labour market, 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.
4. Greater linked data capabilities that result in faster, evidence-based decisions across government.

These were underpinned by detail including the ONS Prioritisation Framework activities, business level milestones (BLMs) and programme level milestones (PLMs) of the then existing transformation programmes.

It is against this planning framework that the ONS will report its performance for 2025/26, acknowledging that over the course of the year the operating framework changed with updated Objectives and Outcomes which are covered in more detail in the ‘Looking Ahead’ section.

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. Seven out of ten areas report full compliance with more than 95% of the criteria categorised as ‘good’ which is broadly consistent with the prior year. Further improvement is required to enhance compliance across the remaining three areas with compliance at 84% for project delivery, 60% for commercial and 86% for digital, data and technology areas, noting that the latter area has shown improvement on the prior year.

OSR Business Plan

OSR published a multi-year strategy in November 2025 and its business plan in February 2026. These set out the independent role, governance, vision, and priority outcomes and activities for OSR. Performance against the OSR strategy and business plan for 2025/26 is set out in the Annex to this document.

Performance Analysis

Introduction

The ONS has faced significant challenges over the past year, including in relation to organisational leadership and culture, and the quality of statistics. The Authority Board and Cabinet Office jointly commissioned Sir Robert Devereux to examine the performance and culture of the organisation in 2025. Sir Robert published his recommendations in June 2025 and, in response, several changes were implemented to restore users’ confidence and renew our focus on improving the quality of our statistics. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) also commenced an Inquiry into the work of the Authority and its executive offices.

The Devereux review provided clear direction on strengthening prioritisation, user engagement and internal accountability, which we used to inform actions to improve resilience, transparency and the trustworthiness of our statistics. Our resulting work to narrow the scope of our portfolio to focus on improvement activity was welcomed by many users, including our new transparent approach to communications and engagement. However, it should be noted that some prioritisation decisions have been difficult for users of some specific statistics. Whilst some users have recognised the prioritisation challenges and have welcomed the engagement, other users are, perhaps inevitably, disappointed with some prioritisation decisions and have been concerned about the resulting impact.

We have continued to listen to, and consult with, experts through our National Statistician’s advisory committees, which provide external challenge that strengthens the methodological rigour of our statistics. Following the completion of the monitoring period for the Inclusive Data Taskforce recommendations, we renewed the Chair and membership of the National Statistician’s Inclusive Data Advisory Committee and welcomed its advice and feedback on the development of GSS Harmonisation data standards and the 2031 Census consultations.

We continued to engage with Parliament, including PACAC as it conducts its inquiry. During the year, we published Economic Statistics and Survey Improvement and Enhancement plans, reporting progress transparently on a quarterly basis while being clear about the challenges we encountered and how we are responding across the breadth of our work. To support these improvement plans and invest in our critical outputs, we paused lower priority activity, including concluding the Integrated Data Programme and refocusing analytical resources on our key priorities.

Throughout the past year, despite the challenges faced, 88.2% of our releases were published within timescales (compared to 91.7% in 2024/25) across a range of statistical topics. We also progressed digital modernisation and methods reform, and maintained our international leadership, particularly through global standards development. However, work in some areas was constrained by data and methodological pressures affecting specific economic series, resourcing gaps in analytical and interviewer roles, and the demands of running multiple transformation programmes in parallel. The pace and complexity associated with moving away from legacy surveys and platforms also placed strain on production.

The inaugural UK Statistics Assembly was held last year in January 2025 with the independent report published in March 2025. In December 2025, UKSA published an update on the four high level priorities with progress on the Assembly recommendations across the statistical system presented to the National Statistician’s Executive Group (NSEG) and the Authority Board in March 2026. Both groups endorsed the importance of continuing to publish updates on activity in response to the Assembly report. A furthermore detailed update covering progress made is planned for summer 2026.

The following sections and Governance Statement later in the report provide more details of the specific challenges we faced during 2025/26, balanced against areas where tangible improvements have been made. The organisation experienced a period of instability particularly in the early part of the year. As the year progressed, we worked hard to provide additional clarity to our stakeholders both internal and external; introduced significant structural changes; refocussed our attention on our core priorities; and incrementally improved systems and processes. 2025/26 should therefore be considered the start of a period of recovery focussed on stabilisation from which we can incrementally continue to improve our overall performance.

Summary of Performance by Priority Outcome

The challenging financial environment remains a constant although this was mitigated through 2025/26 by a steady focus of resources on core priorities. This has conflicted at times with user demand for our statistics which continues to be high. These competing factors are set in the wider context of increasing costs of data collection, more challenging engagement with survey respondents and difficulty in maintaining the capacity of our field force. Continued prioritisation has therefore been essential. In this context, our Priority Outcomes (POs) helped to guide our prioritisation in 2025/26, although trade-offs were inevitable. Each PO is delivered via a set of priority activities, and associated milestones. Performance against the business plan is monitored via key milestones and performance indicators.

It is worth noting that the operating context changed significantly during the year, as described in the previous section. Although this document, in line with HM Treasury guidance, reports on the 2025/26 Business Plan, during the year new outcomes and objectives were developed – as outlined in the Looking Ahead section and in the 2026/27 Business Plan.

Key Deliverables

The 2025/26 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 2026.

Key milestones

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 2025/26. It is often the case that deliverables span Priority Outcomes, therefore we have made the link where we feel the deliverable is most relevant.

Strategic Driver – Radical

Subnational Statistics

Throughout 2025/26, we continued to evolve the ONS Local service, strengthening our support to Mayoral Strategic Authorities and focusing analysis and development work on prioritised user needs. We continued to support capability building with local stakeholders, delivering 37 workshops and webinars with attendance exceeding 600 stakeholders at some events. We published a range of outputs and new statistics, covering topics such as sectors and business dynamism, analysis on towns and high streets, and improved new statistics such as small area Gross Value Added and small area Gross Disposable Household Income. Building on feedback from the UK Statistics Assembly, we established a rural statistics working group and published updated Rural Urban Classification and corresponding analyses.

Explore local statistics, our digital dissemination service to find, compare and visualise statistics about places in the UK, transitioned from Beta to Live in April 2025. Throughout the year, we continued to increase the number of local indicators available on the platform and enriched its functionalities, improving access to local data and supporting engagement with local leaders. We also strengthened support to Mayoral Combined Authorities, with future development of the tool shaped by user need and resourcing priorities.

Crime

During this period, we strengthened crime statistics and analytical capability through methodological redevelopment and improved stakeholder engagement, particularly in surfacing the benefits and limitations of a variety of crime data sources. Key progress included publication of the ONS Centre for Crime and Justice’s Redevelopment of domestic abuse statistics: research update in May 2025 and gaining accreditation of the domestic abuse estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales in October 2025.

In a drive to modernise collection methods, 2025 saw the launch of an updated, online Children’s Crime Survey, with the first results due for publication within the next few months, as well as a feasibility assessment for replicating elements of the face-to-face Crime Survey for England and Wales in an online capacity. A pilot survey was completed following a recommendation from an independent inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, and work will continue to create the framework for this to be rolled out at scale.

Strategic Driver – Ambitious

Economic Statistics

Throughout 2025/26, we strengthened the quality, resilience and trustworthiness of the UK’s economic statistics, while continuing to manage a demanding programme of transformation. Core monthly outputs – including Gross Domestic Product (GDP), labour market statistics and the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) – were delivered consistently while strengthening assurance. We increased our focus on transparency and user communication recognising that this period is characterised by economic volatility, challenging survey response rates, increased use of administrative and alternative data, and necessary methodological change.

In June 2025, we published the Plan for Economic Statistics (ESP) and the Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan (SIEP) to restore the quality of economic and population statistics. These formed part of the response to Sir Robert Devereux’s review of the ONS’s performance and culture and the Office of Statistics Regulation’s (OSR) systemic review of economic statistics. Over two thirds of the milestones within the plans were delivered by the end of March 2026. Progress was supported by strengthened governance, clearer prioritisation, and the introduction of new quality review and data governance frameworks in response to the OSR’s recommendations. Progress depends on managing a set of interrelated risks over time, including specialist capacity in areas such as digital, data and methodology, the scale and sequencing of complex change, fiscal pressures, and competing demands such as Census 2031.

Given capacity constraints, driven by our ability to recruit the requisite number of staff to the requisite timescales and the need to protect the quality of the most critical outputs, we prioritised key surveys and operational delivery. Following feedback from users, the Annual Population Survey continued to run, however in the short-term it now has a reduced survey boost in England, while we seek to address user needs in the longer term through labour market transformation.

We prioritised permanent interviewer recruitment and focused field capacity on the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF) given its importance for GDP, prices and household disposable income statistics.

A significant milestone was the incorporation of grocery scanner data into CPI from February 2026 data onwards, covering around half of the UK grocery market. This represents a step change in coverage and quality, reduces reliance on legacy processes, and aligns UK consumer price statistics more closely with international best practice. Alongside this, targeted improvements to price collection and methodology – including expanded samples for selected components – reduced volatility and strengthened confidence in published inflation measures.

Labour market statistics remained central to public and policy debate. Confidence in the Labour Force Survey (LFS) continued to improve as response levels recovered to close to pre-pandemic levels following sustained survey improvements. We implemented all agreed major design changes to the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) and continued to work closely with users to prepare for the first evidence-led readiness assessment in July 2026 (further details are included in the next section).

Population and Migration

In January 2026 we brought together population statistics, social statistics and Census 2031 in a newly created group: Population, Census and Social Statistics (PCSS). The decision reflects the interconnected nature of the three areas, and the additional value we can gain from bringing them together. Census sits at the heart of our local statistics as well as underpinning our population statistics and household surveys. Bringing these areas together enables us to work more coherently, share expertise more effectively, and ultimately serve our users better.

During the year the group’s focus was on improvements to outputs which have the greatest impact on decision making. We moved away from reliance on survey data in our long-term international migration estimates, which now draw on administrative data.

During 2025/26, we started preparations for Census 2031, following the Government’s decision in July 2025 to commission the Census in England and Wales. The commission of a census in 2031 followed the UK Statistics Authority Board’s endorsement of the Future Population and Migration Statistics (FPMS) recommendation, which built on extensive engagement with departments and wider users to set the strategic direction for a modernised population statistics system. We published the Census 2031 Strategy and have taken forward preparations for the 2027 Census Test, supported by early commercial engagement, capability building and active governance oversight.

Given the context of Census 2031, we reviewed our approach to mid-year estimates. We will not move to the proposed new methods for mid-2025, instead following a continuous improvement model which supports improvements to quality. The Census remains the most reliable way to produce a comprehensive, high quality population snapshot, alongside continued investment in administrative data between censuses.

The ONS has made significant improvements to how we produce migration statistics, making greater use of administrative data. In November 2025, we introduced new methods which removed our reliance on the International Passenger Survey (IPS), and now means our estimates are based on observed data, rather than intentions reported at ports and airports. This is the culmination of many years of development with the latest change for British Nationals, moving away from the IPS to the use of DWP Registration and Population Interaction Database (RAPID) data. At the same time, we also moved to use of Home Office Borders and Immigration (HOBI) data for EU nationals.

Strategic Driver – Ambitious

Responsive Analysis

We produced timely analysis across economic and social domains on priority issues for policymakers and Parliament, including work on energy intensive industries, public service productivity, and analysis supporting labour market, trade and migration releases. While responsiveness was sometimes constrained by resource pressures and transformation activity, it remained a core strength. We are developing new methods to adjust Labour Force Survey (LFS) non-response bias using tax data, we published analysis of mortality by sexual orientation contributing to the LGBT+ Health Evidence Review, and we began analysis of over 1,400 responses to the Ethnicity Harmonisation Consultation. We continued to innovate and deliver impactful analysis on key societal and economic issues – for example through creating a unique linked anonymous data set we were able to provide the first official estimates of the long-term economic impact of motherhood.

Performance is assessed using a Red–Amber–Green (RAG) rating system to provide a clear and consistent indication of status.

• Green – Performance is on track. Objectives are being met, or are expected to be met, with no significant issues or risks requiring management intervention.
• Amber – Some challenges are present. There are emerging risks or issues that may impact delivery, requiring active monitoring and management to ensure objectives can still be achieved.
• Red – Significant challenges exist. Objectives are at serious risk of not being achieved or have not been met, and urgent corrective action or intervention is required.

Strategic Driver – Sustainable

Data, Tools and Innovation

We made progress in strengthening integrated data capability, modernising digital infrastructure and accelerating innovation across statistical production, improving analytical tools for the ONS through re-using assets from the Integrated Data Programme.

Our data strategy was extended to December 2027, which enabled us to strengthen the governance of the data estate across the organisation. We progressed innovation in statistical methods, including the first operational use of a Large Language Model for occupation coding in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), reducing processing time by around 50%. Digital transformation continued through migration of key business surveys to modern platforms, improvements to software engineering practices, and the introduction of new digital tools, improving usability, insight and production efficiency. This reflects our ongoing commitment to transform business surveys and reduce our legacy estate over the next five years.

We continued to look at the use of AI with the in-house development of a ClassifAI application and collaboration with the IMF on their StatGPT tool Going forward we will be refreshing the ONS Digital and Data Strategy to set out the ONS’s longer-term direction for technology, data and the incorporation of AI.

We made, and continue to make, improvements in response to a “Limited” Data Governance audit through the creation of a new Data Governance Office and a business improvement roadmap targeting clearer accountability of data domains and a suite of tooling which supports greater understanding and usability of our data estate.

Strategic Driver – Inclusive

Organisation and Culture

We implemented significant structural, cultural and governance change to strengthen leadership, improve capability and restore confidence. The new reporting structure is documented in the Governance Statement.

In 2025, following the resignation of the then National Statistician, Professor Sir Ian Diamond, it was decided, at least temporarily, to split the role of the National Statistician. This was a recommendation in the Devereux review, dividing the role between a National Statistician and Permanent Secretary of the ONS. Darren Tierney was appointed Permanent Secretary in August 2025. Emma Rourke, Deputy National Statistician for Health, Population and Methods held the position of Acting National Statistician between May and December 2025. Interim plans during the period with no National Statistician in post included the director leading the National Statistician’s Office working closely with the deputy heads of the Government Statistical Service; the chief statisticians of the devolved governments; and head of profession for statistics at the ONS. The Board also established a panel to review GSS wide materials that would ordinarily be cleared by the National Statistician. This cross-system collaboration helped minimise the impact felt by the vacant post during the few months with no National Statistician . A recruitment campaign for the role of National Statistician is well underway. Last autumn, Sir Robert Chote, stepped down as Chair of the Authority and Penny Young is currently Interim Chair until a permanent Chair is appointed.

Alongside the changes at senior leadership, there was an organisational restructuring to bring surveys, economic, population and social statistics, and corporate functions into clearer, more accountable groupings. The National Statistician’s Office was established to increase focus on system-wide statistical issues. Governance arrangements have been strengthened through weekly Executive Committee meetings, and the establishment of new decision-making sub-committees focused on people, strategic design, and performance and change.

Following the Devereux review, the ONS leadership capability has been strengthened with new appointments in key roles. James Benford joined the ONS in August 2025 as Director General for Surveys and Economic Statistics Group (SES). His priorities include leading the improvement plan for ONS economic statistics, ensuring they meet the highest standards of accuracy, transparency and public value. We also made appointments to wider leadership roles including the Executive Director for Population, Census and Social Statistics, the Director of People and Places, the Director of Strategy and Change, and the Director General for Digital, Data and Technology (due to join ONS in July 2026).

There was an increased focus on transparency and more open engagement with staff, enabled through regular colleague forums, pulse surveys, and partnership working with Trade Unions, as well as the articulation of shared leadership values and the development of a People Plan. An agreement with unions on hybrid working has provided clarity and a more mature framework to support effective collaboration and productivity. Together, these changes mark a shift toward a more integrated, accountable and strategically aligned organisation, with greater emphasis on culture, capability and sustainable delivery.

Looking ahead

The ONS, as the Authority’s production arm, introduced significant changes during 2025/26 including to its leadership, structure, and culture. The ONS is now resolutely focussed on critical statistical production. To reflect the changes and the renewed focus on what is most important, during 2025/26 the ONS developed revised strategic outcomes and objectives – replacing the extant Priority Outcomes – as part of its business planning process for 2026/27 and beyond.

The new strategic outcomes and objectives will help to ensure strong coherence and consistent focus in our decision-making across the business. This is even more important in a context of constrained resource and high demand. Our strategic outcomes and objectives are delivered via a set of priority activities, and associated milestones and form the basis of our planning approach. Performance against the Business Plan will be monitored via key performance indicators and milestones aligned to each strategic outcome.

Strategic Outcomes (2026/27)

Our three strategic outcomes, articulate what success looks like.

Success is when we have:

• Outcome 1 – Improved the quality and trustworthiness of the statistics we publish. This outcome will be achieved through a combination of all three strategic objectives listed below.
• Outcome 2 – Provided society and decision makers with timely and relevant data and statistics. This outcome is about delivering timely data and statistics that meet user expectations and will once again require delivery against all three strategic objectives – covering regular statistical production cycles and essential data services supported by capabilities developed through objective 3. 
• Outcome 3 – Developed an efficient, resilient and adaptable organisation with the right capabilities for the future. This outcome is about our infrastructure and workforce. This will be fed mostly by strategic objective 3, informed by users and feedback from delivery of objectives 2 and 3.

Strategic Objectives (2026/27)

To achieve these outcomes, we will:

• Objective 1 – Deliver and continuously improve an agreed portfolio of critical statistics.
• Objective 2 – Deliver agreed essential services of a National Statistics Office that support the use of our data and statistics.
• Objective 3 – Build the essential capability (culture/people/data/tech) improvements required by the ONS today and in the future.

In the second half of 2025/26, the ONS Executive Committee (ExCo) adopted a new approach to business planning (for 2026/27 and beyond) which focused on prioritisation, affordability, and delivery confidence. This reflects a recognition that previous plans at times overcommitted relative to available capacity, which impacted implementation and reduced delivery confidence. The new approach responds directly to staff feedback, and the Devereux review, calling for clearer prioritisation to enable the consistent delivery of high-quality statistical work. Business areas initially submitted high-level plans, which were then reviewed collaboratively through Director-level workshops to agree organisational priorities. These priorities inform the development of milestones across a three-year horizon, rather than a single year.

As part of this exercise, a new mechanism – the Waiting Room– was introduced to strengthen decision-making on, and aid transparent sequencing of, change activities. Its purpose is to ensure that we only progress significant change activity when it can be fully resourced and has met an agreed set of delivery criteria, helping to manage the overall volume of complex change undertaken at any one time. This will help rebalance our portfolio to protect delivery of the work that matters most.

Change activities entering the Waiting Room will either progress through further discovery and development within our change delivery pipeline or be formally paused. Change activities can only exit the Waiting Room and go onto the change delivery pipeline when they meet the agreed conditions for success, following assessment by the new Performance and Change Committee and endorsement by ExCo, ensuring that delivery only begins when it is affordable and feasible.

When change activities progress from the change delivery pipeline they will enter the change delivery portfolio,whichincludes our highest priority and most complex change programmes. This new approach will increase delivery confidence of our biggest programmes and will ensure sufficient funding, enabling resources and conditions for successful delivery are in place including strategic clarity, a validated roadmap, proven feasibility, available skills and resources, and mature governance. Portfolio programmes will undergo rapid assurance by delivery experts to establish greater delivery predictability for our most important change work in Q1 2026/27, with outcomes shared with ExCo to support any necessary interventions.

The clarity provided through our new business plan and the supporting mechanisms introduced in the early part of 2026/27 will help us to mitigate the risks and challenges that we continue to face.

Resources and Organisation

Financial Management

Throughout 2025/26, we complied with all HM Treasury expenditure control approvals processes and submitted returns for the standard annual estimate exercises 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 our remaining programme ring-fence (Future of Population and Migrations Statistics Programme).

2025/26 was the first year of the Spending Review 2025 (SR25) period with budgets agreed in October 2024 as part of the first phase of SR25. Overall organisational budgets were held at the same level as 2024/25 but with an increase in the level of funding classified as core – not subject to policy ring-fences. This funding certainty and greater flexibility has been of benefit to the organisation and has simplified an overly complex funding regime. This has in turn simplified our financial management processes during the year.

The overall financial position for 2025/26 remained tightly managed which required the organisation to continue its focus on its priorities through business planning. The organisational review recommendations and subsequent events in the first half of 2025/26 re-enforced the need to prioritise finite resources. This resulted in the continued protection and then enhancement of critical statistical production and surveys budgets through the year. The organisation experienced significant structural changes during 2025/26 which also required careful financial stewardship.

Overall, the organisation utilised close to 97% of its total net resource and capital budgets during the period. This does however result in a total net resource and capital surplus of £15.7m (noting this figure includes ring-fenced depreciation). Our ability to maximise our resources during 2025/26 was impacted primarily by our level of accuracy in predicting staffing levels through the year. Financial management processes were enhanced during the period to help mitigate the risk of not fully utilising resources as set out in the Governance Statement. Further work is required which will be addressed through 2026/27.

The SR25 settlement included a mandated efficiency and savings target of 2% to be achieved by the end of 2025/26. This target was achieved which equates to more than £8m in terms of value, evidenced by the re-distribution of resources from lower to higher relative priorities and the absorption of cost increases across business areas. Delivery of efficiencies and savings remains a vital component enabling ongoing financial sustainability.

Financial Outcome

Our total net resource expenditure increased from £374.8m in 2024/25 to £393.7m in 2025/26. 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 and for 2025/26 was £405.5m. Net financial resource utilisation is comparable in percentage terms year on year. The increase in absolute net resource expenditure between 2024/25 and 2025/26 is due largely to additional funding approved by HM Treasury for the continued dual run of the Labour Force and Transformed Labour Force Surveys.

In terms of expenditure gross of income receipts, our resource expenditure figures increased from £403.7m in 2024/25 to £416.9m in 2025/26. This increase overall reflects the uplift in expenditure set out above, but the gross position has also been impacted by a higher overall level of income (and associated expenditure) in 2025/26 compared with 2024/25. Our income increased from £28.9m in 2024/25 to £33.2m in 2025/26 due to additional services that ONS provided to other government departments and third parties (externally funded activities).

Our total net capital expenditure decreased from £25.8m in 2024/25 to £19.8m in 2025/26. The commensurate budget for 2024/25 with which to compare was £28.5m and for 2025/26 was £23.7m. The overall decrease in capital expenditure year on year is primarily due to reduced investments on in-house intangible software assets. Our capital expenditure is made up of £11.7m investment in development of assets, with £8.1m 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.

People Capability and Capacity

As the organisation continues to deliver recovery plans and with preparations for Census 2031 live, it is critical that the ONS has the right capability and capacity in place to support delivery now and in the future. Evidence from external reviews has also highlighted a clear gap and need to strengthen deep analytical expertise across the organisation.

Based on this analysis, two priority areas for immediate action have been identified; Legacy System Modernisation (including cloud technologies, R and Python, reproducible analytical pipelines, process automation through agents, and reducing reliance on scarce legacy expertise) and end-to-end Quality Management. To address these capability gaps, cross-organisational expert working groups have identified targeted solutions that are being designed, with delivery planned across quarter 3 and quarter 4 in 2026/27.

Solutions in development include a technical induction programme for colleagues in analytical and digital roles, clear and tailored learning pathways aligned to skill, role and proficiency level, a digital coding learning platform, a structured approach to capturing critical expert knowledge, and refreshing our approach to social based learning. To further enable delivery, work is underway to review and update the workforce plan and skills taxonomy for all critical skills, alongside exploring the implementation of a digital tool to support ongoing skills assessment, gap analysis, and professional development.

Throughout 2025/26, the Authority has further matured its approach to people capability. We continued to embed our strategic skills development approach comprising of several workstreams to ensure we glean a stronger view of the demand and supply of critical skills in the organisation now and in the future.

Specifically in 2025/26 we successfully completed the second phase of our Skills Capture exercise which looked to better understand our current skills levels across the organisation for critical analytical and digital skills we need . Over 2,000 colleagues have engaged with our Skills Capture exercise which has given us a strong, data driven picture of our current capability across coding, statistical methods, analysis, and research. This has provided the basis for much more structured, strategic conversations at directorate and profession level on where the required skills are within the organisation, the skills gaps we have, and the skills we will need in the future.

We conducted a review of the technical capability learning we have available across the organisation with a view of ensuring we have the best possible provision to build skills that we need now and in the future. During 2025/26 we continued to invest in our entry routes into working in government analysis with 27 colleagues joining our 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 in line with our location strategy.

We renewed focus on our senior leadership development offer. In 2025/26 we launched our first ever development programme specifically for Senior Civil Servant (SCS) Deputy Director (SCS1) colleagues. Our ‘Enterprise Leadership Programme’ aims to equip high potential SCS1 leaders with the skills to drive organisational success at an enterprise level. Early feedback has been extremely positive with a second cohort planned for 2026. We also boosted our executive coaching offer for Directors with a view of encouraging heightened collaboration. Finally, we revamped our performance management approach for SCS colleagues to role model open and honest conversations about performance and development, introducing a mid-year conversation and ‘360’ feedback reports for this performance year.

Capacity constraint or the limitations of what could be achieved with the people resources available was a key planning consideration in 2025/26 as it is in any given period. Our business plan for 2025/26 set out how we intended, through prioritisation, to dedicate our resources to what was most important to us. Through the year we increased our focus on core priorities re-pointing resources being one of the results. This is evidenced by the re-allocation of people needed to commence the economic statistics improvement plan and the redeployment of resources as strategic programmes closed.

Financial constraint driven by fixed annual budgets always requires careful management but through 2025/26 we ensured that budgetary allocations facilitated capacity growth aligned with our priority outputs. Overall, our workforce grew by 321 FTE (as set out in the Staff Report on page 123) in year predominantly in business areas responsible for producing core statistical products and the surveys that underpin them. The Financial Management summary on page 43 however sets out that the primary reason for the reported under expenditure in 2025/26 was the level of accuracy in staffing level predictions. This is a key area for ongoing improvement.

Our ability to grow our workforce will always be dictated to a degree by the availability of the requisite capacity in the market. This tension has and will continue to re-enforce our need to prioritise finite resources where they have the most impact, to use our resources as efficiently as possible and to continue to explore other ways of achieving our objectives.

Employee Experience

Over the past year, we strengthened the employee experience at the ONS by listening carefully to our people and acting on what we have heard. The People Survey remains a central part of understanding how colleagues are feeling, and this was complemented by changes to how we act on the People Survey intelligence, including refreshed People Action Groups (PAGs). The ONS committed to ensuring all PAGs had a SCS sponsor, and where possible dedicated resource to lead the PAG, to ensure clearer ownership, stronger local action and improved responses to feedback. The employee engagement score from the 2025 People Survey was 60% (61% in the 2024 Survey). This is a point in time view (October 2025) which reflected an organisation in transition at that time.

We also evolved our approach to senior leader accountability by introducing the Permanent Secretary People Health Checks which introduced clear direction-setting and accountability for people topics in each directorate. These health checks resulted in the introduction of organisational quarterly pulse surveys from April 2026. Alongside this, we launched a clear organisational mission and a leadership statement to give colleagues a shared sense of direction and purpose, anchoring day‑to‑day work in what matters most.

We re-branded and re-launched our employee commendation scheme, previously known as the Excellence Awards, and now the Pride of ONS Awards which brings a warmer, more inclusive way of recognising the contribution of colleagues across the organisation, reinforcing what we value and what we celebrate together. All this sits within our wider cultural transformation journey, as we continue to build an organisation where people feel heard, supported and proud of the part they play in delivering trustworthy statistics for the public good.

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 and response plan 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 five-year Counter Fraud, Bribery and Corruption Strategy to support the Authority in minimising fraud, bribery, and corruption. The team undertakes an annual 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 and target proactive work.

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 annually and contribute to the counter fraud workplan and supportsthe identification of proactive fraud work led by the Counter Fraud Officer, such as targeted training and in-depth reviews. Counter fraud reports are provided 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 interest’s 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 2026 to demonstrate adherence to the policy throughout 2025/26.

Other Information in the Public Interest

Responding to Members of the Public

There were zero complaints about the Authority raised in 2025/26 via the Parliamentary Ombudsmen. The one complaint in 2024/25 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 aligned with this approach and are considered to be effective; our low number of cases is comparable with other departments of a similar size.

When a whistleblowing case is raised, both the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC) Chair and the Board are notified and kept informed of the outcome. This ensures transparency and oversight in the management of all whistleblowing matters. The annual report on whistleblowing and related speak up activities was presented to Audit and Risk Committee, and whistleblowing is also discussed with the UK Statistics Authority Board.

It is important that the Authority provides a safe, inclusive, and supportive work environment; one where everyone feels comfortable to speak up if they experience or witness anything that concerns them. The Authority’s Whistleblowing and Raising a Concern policy provides assurance on the visibility, accessibility and understanding of the approach to raising concerns 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. This includes all-colleague communications and the provision of learning interventions around the framework.

Respect for Human rights

The Authority fully complies with the Human Rights Act 1998.

Respect for human rights correlates strongly 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 Authority’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

The Authority is committed to conducting its operations in a manner that supports environmental protection and sustainable development. This is underpinned by the Sustainable Development Policy, which embeds environmental considerations into decision-making, ensures compliance with relevant legislation, and promotes continual improvement in environmental performance.

During 2025/26, the Authority has aligned its sustainability reporting with HM Treasury’s Sustainability Reporting Guidance, supporting integrated reporting and transparency on environmental impacts in line with the Government Financial Reporting Manual (FReM).

Environmental Performance

In 2025/26, the Authority focused on the collection and reporting of baseline environmental data across its estate and operations. This reflects the transition to a new Greening Government Commitments (GGC) framework for 2025–30, for which final targets had not been published at the time of reporting. As a result, performance is presented as baseline data only, providing a consistent basis for future measurement.

The Authority has reported environmental performance across key areas required under sustainability reporting guidance, including greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and water consumption.

Environmental performance metrics (2025/26)

Metric	Unit	2025/26 Baseline	FY 2024/25
Total greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1 and 2 as reported)	tCO₂e	1,812	1,803
Direct building emissions	tCO₂e	86	76
Waste arising (total)	tonnes	162	116
Water consumption (estate total)	m³	10,670	8,872
Domestic flights emissions*	tCO₂e	48	47

Note: *Domestic flights form part of broader Scope 2 and Scope 3 travel-related emissions reporting.

These metrics have been prepared in line with central government sustainability reporting requirements, using established methodologies for emissions, waste, and water reporting.

The observed decline in environmental performance metrics is primarily attributable to increased office occupancy under revised hybrid working arrangements, resulting in higher energy use and onsite resource consumption compared with the prior reporting period. In addition, gas boilers have been reintroduced at the Titchfield and Christchurch sites, a water leak remains under investigation, and enhanced transparency in waste reporting (including the inclusion of project waste) has contributed to the change in reported performance. Notwithstanding these factors, targeted measures and ongoing sustainability initiatives are intended to support improved performance over time.

Gross expenditure on the purchase of energy for 2025/26 was £894k (£1,155k 2024/25). This is broken down to £719k electricity (£903k 2024/25), £100k gas (£130k 2024/25) and £75k biomass (£122k 2024/25). The Authority has also accounted for £70k on water consumption (£63k 2024/25).

The total expenditure on waste for 2025/26 was £155k (£275k 2024/25) – all municipal waste:

	2025/26			2024/25
	%	Tonnes	£’ 000*	%	Tonnes	£’ 000*
total waste recycled	48	77	74	62	71	170
total waste composted	13	22	20	7	8	19
total waste incinerated with energy recovery	36	58	56	30	35	83
total waste incinerated without energy recovery	0	0	0	0	0	0
total waste to landfill	0	0	0	0	0	0
Other	3	5	5	1	2	3

Note: *Detailed costings are not available by category and therefore % has been used to generate an estimate of costs

In 2025/26, the Authority disposed of 4,349 ICT units, comprising 1,897 items sold or donated for reuse (3.719 tonnes) and 2,452 items recycled (0.008 tonnes). In 2024/25, 4,335 ICT units were disposed of, comprising 4,086 items sold or donated for reuse (3.811 tonnes) and 249 items recycled (0.109 tonnes). No ICT waste was sent to landfill or disposed of via incineration (with or without energy recovery) in either year. The value returned to the Authority for both years was nil.

Resource efficiency and operational impacts

The Authority continues to manage environmental impacts across its operations, with a focus on efficient resource use and waste reduction. Waste arising from the estate is monitored and managed through established contractual arrangements, with ongoing efforts to minimise landfill and increase recycling rates in line with government policy expectations.

Water consumption across the estate is measured and reported in cubic metres, supporting improved understanding of resource usage and enabling future reductions.

Sustainability considerations are embedded within procurement processes, with suppliers required to comply with environmental requirements set out in the Authority’s standard terms and conditions. This includes commitments to resource efficiency, emissions reduction, and minimisation of environmental harm.

Estate, operations, and supply chain

Environmental sustainability is incorporated into estate management and operational delivery. This includes programmes to improve building performance, reduce resource consumption and promote reuse and recycling of assets, alongside embedding sustainability within supply chain management and procurement activity.

The Authority continues to work with government frameworks to support sustainable procurement and encourage engagement with small and medium-sized enterprises where appropriate.

Sustainable Procurement

The Authority’s standard Terms and Conditions for contracts 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, where applicable, 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 Service (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.

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. We continue to eradicate the use of single use plastics across the service. Waste management has a particular focus and the installation of an onsite biodigester at Newport means that we can reduce waste, in particular food waste, further. Other initiatives to reduce takeaway cups and containers are in progress at all ONS sites.

Sustainable Construction

The Authority’s refurbishment and construction works are designed and delivered 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 Solar Panels to the Pump House Roof in Newport, improving and expanding our Electric Vehicle charging points, works to resolve water loss onsite and the installation of a biodigester as part of biodiversity enhancements. 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 was 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 grounds maintenance contract. We further enhanced the Newport estate with biodiversity funding from GPA through wildflower expansion, increasing our diversity of planting and installation of a biodigestor to eliminate food waste wherever possible.

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.

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 (TCFD) 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 following recommended disclosures:

• Governance recommended disclosures (a) and (b)
• Risk Management recommended disclosures (a) to (c)
• Metrics and targets recommended disclosures (b)

This is in line with central government’s TCFD-aligned disclosure application guidance. This level of disclosure is consistent with expectations set for central government bodies and reflects the Authority’s commitment to transparent and proportionate climate‑related reporting.

At present, the Authority does not consider climate change to represent a principal risk to the delivery of our statutory objectives and strategic priorities. While the Authority recognises the importance of environmental issues and the increasing relevance of climate change to the public sector landscape, current assessments indicate that climate‑related factors do not pose a significant threat to the achievement of our core functions or long‑term objectives. This position is kept under regular review as part of our organisational risk management processes.

Because climate change is not held as a principal risk, the Authority is not required, under HM Treasury’s phase 3 TCFD guidance, to report on:

• Metrics and targets recommended disclosures (a) and (c);
• Strategy recommended disclosures (a) to (c).

The Authority considers its disclosures to be consistent with HM Treasury’s TCFD-aligned application guidance, applying a proportionate approach based on its current assessment of climate-related risk.

The Authority will continue to monitor climate‑related developments across government and within our operating environment. As the public sector’s understanding of climate risk evolves and as future phases of TCFD implementation guidance are introduced, we will review our approach to ensure it remains appropriate, robust and aligned to best practice.

Governance

Sustainability performance is monitored through internal governance arrangements, with relevant data reported to senior leadership to support oversight and decision-making.

At the beginning of 2025/26 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 data gathered in line with the GGCs. Following changes to the executive governance of the Authority, from quarter 2 of 2025/26 this information was provided directly to the Executive Committee periodically.

The Authority will build on the 2025/26 baseline to enhance future sustainability reporting, including reporting against updated GGCs once these are formally published. This will support improved performance tracking and continued alignment with central government sustainability frameworks.

For the 2025/26 reporting structure, please see page 66 of the Governance statement.

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 the Authority’s climate performance, metrics and targets.

Risk Management

Risk management is an integral part of the Authority’s planning and decision making. The Authority’s Risk Management Framework sets out the principles, concepts and accountabilities for effective risk management across the department and is aligned to central government guidance, namely the Orange Book – Management of Risk, Principles and Concepts 2023 – and Managing Public Money. The Authority’s risk appetite was set by the Authority Board.

Although there are no strategic risks relating to sustainability and environment, all risks are managed 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.

Darren Tierney
Chief Executive and Accounting Officer
UK Statistics Authority
June 2026