Guidance

FCDO statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics

Published 19 December 2023

This document sets out the FCDO’s approach to compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics (‘the Code’) to support its pillars of trustworthiness, quality, and value and provide confidence in our statistical outputs.

The FCDO publishes Statistics on International Development. These statistics are accredited Official Statistics that have been independently reviewed by OSR (September 2019) and confirmed to comply with the professional standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

All other statistics at FCDO voluntarily comply with the Code. This reflects our commitment to the principles underling the Code and gives users of our statistics confidence that our data are of good quality, useful for supporting decisions, and well respected. The following statement explains how these statistics voluntarily comply with the Code.

Trustworthiness

Confidence in the people and organisations that produce statistics and data

The FCDO’s statistical outputs are produced by skilled statisticians who are members of the Government Statistical Service (GSS). As GSS members, statisticians undertake a commitment to maintain professional standards and participate in continuous professional development. They have a professional line of accountability to the FCDO’s Chief Statistician, who has a professional line of accountability to the National Statistician.

Data are processed in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act (2018) and the FCDO’s internal governance process to ensure that data are securely handled and managed throughout its lifecycle.

Access to the statistics during the collection, quality assurance and production are kept to a minimum within the FCDO, to ensure equality of access where possible.

Statistical outputs are published through clear, accessible factsheets with assured data presented impartially and objectively.

Quality

Data and methods that produce assured statistics

The information in the FCDO’s statistical outputs are collected from FCDO Posts, central FCDO departments and multilateral institutions. The data are collected from a variety of sources, such as household surveys, management information systems, and administrative project data generated from routine project monitoring by the FCDO and its partners.

Given the range of data sources used, the accuracy of the resulting data does vary depending on the quality of the underlying source. In many cases the FCDO uses data collected by others (for example, partner country governments or international organisations) and therefore has limited control over the quality of the data. Further, verifying the standard of the data provided by partners can be challenging in some environments where the FCDO operates (for example, conflict zones or areas recovering from natural disasters). However, the FCDO is continually working with partners and on data systems to better improve data availability and quality to ensure its robustness over time.

Clear explanations of data sources, definitions, methodologies, and the strengths and limitations on the use of data is published alongside FCDO statistics to help aid better understanding and interpretation of FCDO statistics.

FCDO statisticians undertake quality assurance of data to minimise the risk of error. The types of error which the FCDO aims to minimise include:

• double counting: identifying unique beneficiaries and avoiding duplication in reporting between partners, programmes, FCDO departments, and across years
• FCDO attribution: accurately associating results with FCDO interventions or funding, where applicable
• counting non-related activities: ensuring results are for qualifying activities only, as specified in the methodology note

Any revisions to published statistics are handled in line with the FCDO revisions policy.

Value

Supporting society’s need for information

The FCDO’s statistical outputs are tailored to meet user requirements and provide valuable insight on the activity and outcomes of the department.

Statistical outputs, data and explanatory materials are presented in a clear, unambiguous way to support and promote its use by all types of users. Detailed disaggregated data is also provided, where this is available, to enable a better understanding of the drivers behind the data.

Clear descriptions accompany the main statistical messages and explain the relevance and the meaning of the statistics in a way that is not materially misleading.

All publications contain contact details where users can seek further information on the statistics.