T4: Transparent processes and management

Organisations should have effective business processes and appropriate resources to support their statistical functions and be open about their plans, priorities and progress.


What you should commit to

T4.1 Organisations should be transparent about their approach to public engagement with users, potential users, and other stakeholders with an interest in the public good served by the statistics.

T4.2 A work programme should be established and regularly reviewed. Statistics producers should be open about progress towards meeting priorities and objectives. Users and other stakeholders should be involved to help prioritise statistical plans.

T4.3 Sufficient human, financial and technological resources should be provided to deliver  statistical services that serve the public good.

T4.4 Good business practices should be maintained in the use of resources. Where appropriate, statistics producers should take opportunities to share resources and collaborate to achieve common goals and produce coherent statistics.

T4.5 Organisations should be open about their commitment to quality and make clear their approach to quality management. They should ensure that the organisational structure and tools are in place to manage quality effectively, and promote and adopt appropriate quality standards.

T4.6 Independent measures, such as internal and external audit, peer review and National Statistics Quality Reviews, should be used to evaluate the effectiveness of statistical processes. Statistics producers should be open about identified areas for improvement.


Guidance and resources

Description Link Source
A document that summarises the process to create, update and agree all Government Statistical Service (GSS) policies, standards, guidance and strategies. The document highlights the process required to upload documents on the Policy and guidance hub and the metadata which should be included within them. Governance for statistical policies, standards and guidance GSS
A webpage that outlines the expectations and legislation requirements, and describes the need for administrations to work together. Devolution and the GSS GSS
Guidance that aims to help producers of official statistics consider how best to involve other administrations. Working across the devolved administrations GSS
Guidance that provides practical advice on how to communicate quality, uncertainty and change for different types of statistics and for a range of audiences. Communicating quality, uncertainty and change GSS
The Concordat sets out the agreed framework for co-operation between the UK Government (including the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) and Office for National Statistics (ONS)) and devolved administrations, in relation to the production of statistics, for and within the UK, statistical standards and the statistics profession. Concordat on Statistics (between UK Government, ONS, UKSA and devolved administrations) (PDF, 0.09MB) GSS
The government has published a revised set of government consultation principles. These principles give clear guidance to government departments on conducting consultations. Guidance on public consultations Cabinet Office
Published and upcoming official statistics from across UK government, including statistical releases and data tables. gov.uk statistics release calendar UK Government