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The Office for National Statistics (ONS; ) is the executive office of the
UK Statistics Authority The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA, ) is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for oversight of the Office for National Statistics, maintaining a national code of practice for official statist ...
, a
non-ministerial department Non-ministerial government departments (NMGDs) are a type of Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom government that deal with matters for which direct political over ...
which reports directly to the
UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...
.


Overview

The ONS is responsible for the collection and publication of statistics related to the economy, population and society of the United Kingdom; responsibility for some areas of statistics in
Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...
,
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...
and
Wales Wales ( ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by the Irish Sea to the north and west, England to the England–Wales border, east, the Bristol Channel to the south, and the Celtic ...
is devolved to the devolved governments for those areas. The ONS functions as the executive office of the National Statistician, who is also the UK Statistics Authority's Chief Executive and principal statistical adviser to the UK's National Statistics Institute, and the 'Head Office' of the Government Statistical Service (GSS). Its main office is in Newport near the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office and
Tredegar House Tredegar House (Welsh language, Welsh: ''Tŷ Tredegar'') is a 17th-century Charles II of England, Charles II-era mansion in Coedkernew, on the southwestern edge of Newport, Wales. For over five hundred years it was home to the Morgan family, late ...
, but another significant office is in
Titchfield Titchfield is a village and former civil parish in the Borough of Fareham, Fareham district, in southern Hampshire, England, by the River Meon. The village has a history stretching back to the 6th century. During the medieval period, the villa ...
in Hampshire, and a small office is in London. ONS co-ordinates data collection with the respective bodies in Northern Ireland and Scotland, namely NISRA and NRS.


History

The ONS was formed on 1 April 1996 by the merger of the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS). Following the
Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (c18) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA). It came into force in April 2008. Sir Michael Scholar was appointed as the first Chai ...
, the United Kingdom Statistics Authority became a
non-ministerial department Non-ministerial government departments (NMGDs) are a type of Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the Government of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom government that deal with matters for which direct political over ...
on 1 April 2008.


Purpose and scope

ONS produces and publishes a wide range of the information about the United Kingdom that can be used for social and economic policy-making as well as painting a portrait of the country as its population evolves over time. This is often produced in ways that make comparison with other societies and economies possible. Much of the data on which policy-makers depend is produced by ONS through a combination of a decennial population census, samples and surveys and analysis of data generated by businesses and organisations such as the National Health Service and the register of births, marriages and deaths. Its publications, and analyses by other users based on its published data, are reported and discussed daily in the media as the basis for the public understanding of the country in which they live.


Applications of data

The reliance on some of these data by government (both local and national) makes ONS material central to debates about the determination of priorities, the allocation of resources and for decisions on interest rates or borrowing. The complexity and degree and speed of change in the society, combined with the challenge of measuring some of these (e.g. in relation to longevity, migration or illness patterns or fine movements in inflation or other aspects of national accounts) give rise to periodic debates about some of its indicators and portrayals. Many of these rely on sources which are outside ONS, while some of its own sources need to be supplemented, for example between censuses, by updated but less rigorously obtained information from other sources. Consequently, unexpected or incomplete data or occasional errors or disputes about its analysis can also attract considerable attention. ONS data can also be used in epidemiologic studies such as
survival analysis Survival analysis is a branch of statistics for analyzing the expected duration of time until one event occurs, such as death in biological organisms and failure in mechanical systems. This topic is called reliability theory, reliability analysis ...
.


Independence

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party (UK), Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. Previously, he was Chancellor of the Ex ...
, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced on 28 November 2005, that the government intended to publish plans in early 2006 to legislate that the ONS and the statistics it generates are independent of government on a model based on the independence of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. This was originally a 1997 Labour manifesto commitment and was also the policy of the Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties. Such independence was also sought by the
Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...
and the
Statistics Commission The Statistics Commission was a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation, non-departmental public body established in June 2000 by the Politics of the United Kingdom, UK Government to oversee the work of the Office for National Statistics. ...
. The National Statistician would be directly accountable to Parliament through a more widely constituted independent governing Statistics Board. The ONS would be a non-ministerial government department so that the staff, including the Director, would remain as civil servants but without being under direct ministerial control. The then National Statistician, Dame Karen Dunnell, stated that legislation would help improve public trust in official statistics (although the ONS already acted independently, as per its own published guidelines, the National Statistics Code of Practice, which set out the key principles and standards that official statisticians, including those in other parts of the government statistical service, were expected to follow and uphold). The details of the plans for independence were considered in Parliament during the 2006/2007 session and resulted in the
Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (c18) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA). It came into force in April 2008. Sir Michael Scholar was appointed as the first Chai ...
. In July 2007, Sir Michael Scholar was nominated by the government to be the three-day-a-week non-executive chairman of the Statistics Board which, with the intention of re-establishing faith in the integrity of government statistics, was to take on statutory responsibility for oversight of UK statistics in April 2008 and oversee the Office for National Statistics; also having a duty to assess all UK government statistics. Following Gordon Brown's announcement of new constitutional arrangements for public appointments, Sir Michael also became, on 18 July, the first such nominee to appear before the House of Commons Treasury Committee and to have his nomination subject to confirmation by the House. On 7 February 2008, following the first meeting of the shadow board, it was announced that it would be known as the
UK Statistics Authority The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA, ) is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for oversight of the Office for National Statistics, maintaining a national code of practice for official statist ...
(UKSA). In 2012, Andrew Dilnot replaced Michael Scholar as chairman of the Authority.


Heads of the Office and the National Statistician

Since its establishment, ONS has had five Directors: professor Tim Holt;
Len Cook Leonard Warren Cook CBE CRSNZ (born 13 April 1949) is a professional statistician who was Government Statistician of New Zealand from 1992 to 2000, and National Statistician and Director of the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics, an ...
; Karen Dunnell; Jil Matheson; and, from October 2012, Glen Watson. Len Cook was the first Director to hold the newly created role of National Statistician. The roles of Director of ONS and National Statistician were combined until 2012 when Jil Matheson continued as National Statistician while Glen Watson became Director of the ONS. John Pullinger replaced Jil Matheson as National Statistician (and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority) in July 2014. Pullinger retired in June 2019 and in October 2019 professor Sir Ian Diamond assumed the role of National Statistician. Emma Rourke moved to the National Statistician role, 9 May 2025, due to Sir Ian's health.


Work

The work of the ONS covers the collection of data and the analysis and publication of statistics covering the economy, population, and society of the UK. Where data is broken down by geographical area, this is usually done by the areas defined in the ONS geographical coding system.


Data collection

The principal areas of data collection include: *Agriculture and Environment *Business and Energy *Children, Education and Skills *Crime and Justice *Economy ( ESCoE) *Government *Health and Social Care *Labour Market *People and Places *Population *Travel and Transport Statisticians are also employed by many other Government departments and agencies, and these statisticians often collect and publish data. They are members of the Government Statistical Service and are the professional responsibility of the head of the service, who is also the National Statistician. Each department has a statistical service ''Head of Profession''. For example, data on Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry comes primarily from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Along with economic data on which the Treasury and Bank of England rely for decision-making, many of the statistics that receive widespread media attention are issued by the Home Office, the
Department of Health A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their o ...
, and the Department for Education and Skills. ONS is also responsible for the maintenance of the ''Inter-Departmental Business Register'' and the ''Business Structure Database''.


Former departments

Before the establishment of the
UK Statistics Authority The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA, ) is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for oversight of the Office for National Statistics, maintaining a national code of practice for official statist ...
, the statistical work of ONS, since June 2000, was scrutinised by the
Statistics Commission The Statistics Commission was a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation, non-departmental public body established in June 2000 by the Politics of the United Kingdom, UK Government to oversee the work of the Office for National Statistics. ...
, an independent body with its own chairman and small staff. This ceased to operate from 1 April 2008. The
General Register Office General Register Office or General Registry Office (GRO) is the name given to the civil registry in the United Kingdom, many other Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations and Republic of Ireland, Ireland. The GRO is the government agency r ...
and the post of Registrar-General for England and Wales ceased to be part of ONS from that date but remains subject to ministerial accountability within the
Home Office The Home Office (HO), also known (especially in official papers and when referred to in Parliament) as the Home Department, is the United Kingdom's interior ministry. It is responsible for public safety and policing, border security, immigr ...
.


The Blue Book

The annual United Kingdom National Accounts are published in an online publication (The Blue Book) by the Office for National Statistics. It records and describes economic activity in the United Kingdom and as such is used by government, banks, academics and industries to formulate the economic and social policies and monitor the economic progress of the United Kingdom. It also allows international comparisons to be made. The Blue Book is published alongside the United Kingdom Balance of Payments – The Pink Book.


Education of statisticians

The Office for National Statistics collaborates with the
University of Southampton The University of Southampton (abbreviated as ''Soton'' in post-nominal letters) is a public university, public research university in Southampton, England. Southampton is a founding member of the Russell Group of research-intensive universit ...
in the teaching of an MSc in Official Statistics; the programme has been running since 2003.


Virtual Microdata Laboratory

The Virtual Microdata Laboratory (VML) was established in 2004 to allow researchers access to business data. It is a secure facility within the Office for National Statistics where both government officials and academic researchers can analyse sensitive, detailed data for statistical purposes. The researchers cannot download the data or take any copies out of the laboratory and the results of the analysis is checked for statistical disclosure.


Office locations

The ONS has a head office in the city of Newport, Wales, and other offices in
2 Marsham Street 2 Marsham Street is an office building on Marsham Street in the City of Westminster, London, and headquarters of the Home Office and Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (and its predecessor bodies), departments of the Brit ...
in London and
Titchfield Titchfield is a village and former civil parish in the Borough of Fareham, Fareham district, in southern Hampshire, England, by the River Meon. The village has a history stretching back to the 6th century. During the medieval period, the villa ...
in Hampshire.Office for National Statistics: location maps
, www.ons.gov.uk. Retrieved 22 December 2017.
The
Family Records Centre The Family Records Centre (FRC) provided access to family history research sources mainly for England and Wales. It was administered jointly by the General Register Office (GRO) and The National Archives. It opened in March 1997 and was fully ...
in Myddelton Street in
Islington Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...
, London, moved to the National Archives in Kew in 2008. They also have an Archive Storage site located in
Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...
, Dorset.


Former headquarters

The London (Pimlico) office was the head office until April 2006 when the corporate headquarters was moved to Newport following the Lyons Review on public sector relocation. Between 2011 and 2022 the London office was located on the 2nd floor of the former Drummond Gate headquarters; since 2022 the London office has been located in 2 Marsham Street.


Gradual move of functions to South Wales

The ONS asserted that recruitment and training of quality staff in South Wales, where data collection and analysis already took place, would ensure that there was no risk to the quality of its services and that it managed the risks associated with the changes. However, the plan to discontinue statistical activity in London proved controversial amid claims that the shift of functions from London and the closure of the London office would have serious implications for the future of certain sets of statistics. These include health statistics, National Accounts, Retail and Consumer Prices and Labour Market Statistics. These risks were stated to derive from the fact that few of the experienced staff working in these highly technical areas were expected to relocate to Newport, resulting in a substantial loss of expertise and a consequent threat to the continued quality of the statistics. In a submission to the Parliamentary Treasury Sub Committee, the Bank of England expressed concern over the relocation of the ONS to Newport, saying, that ''"the relocation programme poses serious risks to the maintenance of the quality of macroeconomic data. If substantial numbers of ONS staff are unwilling to relocate, the loss of skilled individuals could have a severe impact on a range of statistics."'' The director of ONS at the time vigorously defended the implementation of government policy on civil service relocation and the decision to concentrate staff in the three locations outside London.


Criticism

The Office for National Statistics won the 2004 Big Brother Award for the "Most Heinous Government Organisation" from the campaigning organisation
Privacy International Privacy International (PI) is a UK-based registered charity that defends and promotes the right to privacy across the world. First formed in 1990, registered as a non-profit company in 2002 and as a charity in 2012, PI is based in London. Its ...
for its
Citizen Information Project In the United Kingdom, the Citizen Information Project (CIP) was a plan by the Office for National Statistics to build a national population register. On 18 April 2006 it was announced that instead of continuing as a separate project, it would be ...
. The project is one of several that led the Information Commissioner to warn that there is a danger of the country "sleepwalking" into a surveillance society. In December 2012 the organisation's new website to provide statistics to the public was described as "a disaster" by members of parliament on the Public Administration Committee. The chair of the UK Statistics Authority said that significant improvements to the website were being made, but admitted that its state at the time made it "difficult to use, difficult to navigate and difficult to search". In 2016, professor Sir Charles Bean conducted an independent review of UK Economic Statistics. He notes that although there is much criticism of the ONS's performance, particularly of the size and frequency of revisions, that this criticism is "not entirely justified". Following the review, the then-Chair of the
Treasury Select Committee The House of Commons Treasury Committee (often referred to as the Treasury Select Committee) is a select committee of the House of Commons in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The committee is responsible for examining and scrutinizing the ...
, Andrew Tyrie, criticised the ONS for being "out of touch". In 2019, the ONS admitted that EU migration to the UK may have been underestimated due to methodology of the International Passenger Survey. In 2025, the ONS suggested that unreliable employment data was a result of smart door bells.


See also

*
Departments of the United Kingdom Government The Government of the United Kingdom is divided into departments that each have responsibility, according to the government, for putting government policy into practice. There are currently 24 ministerial departments, 20 non-ministerial departm ...
*
List of national and international statistical services The following is a list of national and international statistical services. Central national statistical services Nearly every country in the world has set a central public sector unit entirely devoted to the production, harmonisation and dissemin ...
*
National Records of Scotland National Records of Scotland () is a non-ministerial department of the Scottish Government. It is responsible for civil registration, the census in Scotland, demography and statistics, family history, as well as the national archives and hist ...
*
Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA, ) is an executive agency within the Department of Finance (Northern Ireland), Department of Finance in Northern Ireland. The organisation is responsible for the collection and publicat ...
* United Kingdom Censuses


Notes


References


External links

* – official site
UK Statistics AuthorityStatistics and Registration Service Bill
Treasury website.

Parliament website.
Palgrave Macmillan, official publisher for the Office for National Statistics
{{DEFAULTSORT:Office For National Statistics Demographics of England Demographics of Wales
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
Organisations based in Newport, Wales Government databases in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1996 1996 establishments in the United Kingdom Statistical organisations in the United Kingdom