Guidance

Ministry of Defence revisions and corrections policy

Updated 30 January 2024

Overview

This section sets out the processes which producers of Official and National statistics will use to revise or correct their publications. These processes have been developed in line with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics, particularly Principle T3.9.

Scheduled revisions

Scheduled revisions are planned amendments to published statistics that improve quality by incorporating additional data that were unavailable at the point of original publication.

Statistics are initially published as provisional, which means that they are subject to change. At a later scheduled date, as announced on the upcoming statistical releases on GOV.UK, the statistics will be revised and reissued.

Statistics published as provisional are clearly marked by a superscript ‘p’ next to each provisional figure and include information on the reasons why the data are provisional.

Once data initially published as provisional are made final, the ‘p’ markers will be removed and any figures that have changed will be marked with an ‘r’. Information on the reasons why the data have been revised will be provided.

Corrections

Corrections to statistics will be made if errors are found or if figures are amended as a result of changes to methodology or definitions.

The Head of Profession for Statistics will decide if a major or minor error has occurred and advise the team responsible for the publication of any required corrective actions.

Major errors are errors which have a substantial impact in the use made of the data, for example where the overall message changes. These errors will be corrected as soon as possible by reissuing the statistics with the corrected figures.

Minor errors are errors which are not substantial enough to be classified as major errors. These will be corrected as appropriate (always within 12 months) and timed to coincide with (but not restricted to) the release of new editions of statistical products.

In cases where errors are found in time series that appear in more than one edition the errors will be corrected in the most recent edition only. Older editions will not need to be corrected.

Where changes are made to methodology or to definitions in a time series, corrections to the historical data in the time series will be considered to bring it in line with the new methodology or definitions. This may not be possible and depends on the data availability and the amount of work involved. The requirements of the users will be considered when making such decisions.

If an error is identified but corrected figures are not yet available due to a need for further investigation, a note will be added to the statistics to explain the situation making it clear the figures are subject to change.

Corrections will be shown by the addition of a superscript ‘r’ next to figures that have been corrected. This will be accompanied by a note explaining the reason for and the scale of the correction. Corrections will only be marked in the first edition of each publication that the corrected figures appear in. If the figures then appear again in future editions they will not be marked as corrected.

The front page of the report will state when it was first published and when it was revised.

In cases where errors are corrected in spreadsheets:

• in the first edition after revision, corrections will be shown by the addition of a superscript ‘r’ next to figures that have been corrected in the spreadsheet: this will be accompanied by a note explaining the reason for and the scale of the correction

• in subsequent editions, the ‘r’ marker and original note will be removed from the spreadsheet and replaced by a note explaining what was revised, the reason for and scale of the correction

Owner: Director for Analysis

Author: Analysis Directorate

Issue Date: August 2020