The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 was introduced on 1st April 2008 with the aim of enhancing levels of public confidence in official statistics. As a result the UK Statistics Authority was formed as an independent, non-ministerial government department directly accountable to Parliament. Its statutory objective is to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good.
The provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act also apply to Northern Ireland as do the powers of the UK Statistics Authority. In January 2009 the UK Statistics Authority published the Code of Practice for Official Statistics, which was reviewed and replaced with the updated code in February 2018.
The UK Statistics Authority will monitor the production and publication of official statistics in Northern Ireland and report any concerns to those responsible for them. Official Statistics which Northern Ireland Departments wish to see assigned as National Statistics will be assessed against the new Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
National Statistics
National Statistics stand for relevance, quality, integrity and freedom from political interference. They provide an up-to-date, comprehensive and meaningful description of the UK´s economy and society. National Statistics covers government data produced to the high professional principles and standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
Official Statistics and Police Service of Northern Ireland
The Police Service of Northern Ireland is listed in The Official Statistics Order 2009 as a producer of official statistics and is therefore subject to the Statistics and Registration Act 2007. Statisticians from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency are seconded to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and are responsible for ensuring that the statistics they produce comply with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland currently has 4 National Statistics. Quality reports have been compiled for each of these National Statistics Outputs and are available below:
1. Police recorded crime and outcome statistics in Northern Ireland quality report (PDF, 293 KB)
2. Injury road traffic collision statistics for Northern Ireland quality report (PDF, 132 KB)
3. Statistics on the security situation in Northern Ireland quality report (PDF, 128 KB)
4. Statistics on motoring offences in Northern Ireland quality report (PDF, 451KB)
Further Information:
User Consultation
Pillar 3 of the Code of Practice for Official Statistics relates to value and recommends a range of ways in which this can be achieved, including regular review of the usefulness of the statistics and public engagement. For this reason, Police Service of Northern Ireland publish information about users’ experiences of statistical services, data quality and the format and timing of reports. Any interaction with key users of Police Service of Northern Ireland statistics usually falls into one of the three groups highlighted below:
i) Engagement with users through regular user group meetings or correspondence– these are held with key users throughout the year and normally involve Police Service of Northern Ireland statisticians and policy & statistical colleagues in other Northern Ireland government departments or in other criminal justice agencies but do also involve external interest groups.
- Recorded crime, domestic & hate motivations and anti social behaviour statistics consultations and meetings (PDF, 25 KB)
- Injury road traffic collision statistics consultations and meetings (PDF, 66 KB)
- Security statistics consultations and meetings (PDF, 14 KB)
ii) User Surveys – we regularly survey the key users of our statistics to ascertain what they think about the service they receive. The most recent User Survey was conducted in December 2018 and results have been summarised in the document below.
iii) Consultation exercises regarding proposed changes to statistical outputs or processes – this is where a wide range of users are consulted by Police Service of Northern Ireland Statistics Branch in advance of any planned changes to the statistics we report on.
- There are no consultations currently open
User Feedback
Comments and feedback from consultations with users, from the user satisfaction survey and from general feedback received are shown below. Any action taken or changes being considered as a result of this feedback are also outlined in these documents, which will be updated and reviewed on an ongoing basis.