Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics
Updated 5 August 2024
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/food-statistics-pocketbook/statement-of-compliance-with-the-code-of-practice-for-statistics
Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics
1. Background
In November 2018, the Food Statistics Pocketbook publication process changed from an annual cycle to a rolling program of continuous updates. It remains a National Statistics output, but updates will not be pre announced in the future. This change was made in response to user feedback, in order to allow us to make it a more flexible and adaptable product. The quality of the statistics within it is unchanged. This document explains how the Pocketbook complies with the Code, and the areas where it does not.
2. The Code of Practice
The Code provides producers of official statistics with the detailed practices they must commit to when producing and releasing official statistics.
The Code ensures that the statistics published by government serve the public. When producers of official statistics comply with the Code, it gives users of statistics and citizens confidence that published government statistics are of public value, are high quality and are produced by people and organisations that are worthy of trust.
3. The Pocketbook
The Pocketbook is a compendium of official statistics drawn from a range of government departments and other public bodies. It presents an overview of the landscape of statistics about the food chain. Most of the content of the Pocketbook reproduces National Statistics or official statistics sources, i.e. those which are already produced to Code of Practice standards. Where there are gaps in the evidence base the best available unofficial sources are used. For international statistics, internationally recognised sources such as Eurostat and the UN are used.
4. Compliance
Statistics in the Pocketbook are therefore mostly Code-compliant. The production process also follows the Code guidance: Internal review and QA of the content, and assessment of unofficial sources for suitability. Sources reproduced in the Pocketbook are updated to their own differing production cycles. From November 2018, instead of producing annual editions of the Pocketbook, we will instead update its contents as and when updated data is published by producers. This will ensure that it is more useful to users. However the overall volume and irregularity of updates mean that pre-announcing Pocketbook updates to fulfil principle T3 on orderly release is not possible. The individual sources will continue to be pre-announced by their producers.
We have made this change following consultation with the Defra Head of Profession for Statistics and the Office for Statistics Regulation.