FOI reference: FOI-2025-2890
You asked
1. For each of the last five financial years, how many complaints did the UK Statistics Authority receive in relation to:
(a) the Ministry of Defence?
(b) issues specifically related to the Ministry of Defence applying the Code of Practice for Statistics?
(c) issues specifically related to the Ministry of Defence’s production of accredited official statistics (which may include items from item b)?
2. For each of the last five financial years, how many complaints were reported to the UK Statistics Authority’s National Statistician by the Ministry of Defence’s Head of Profession? For each of those complaints, what was the complaint reason and what action was taken?
3. Since November 2024, have any Compliance Checks or Rapid Reviews been undertaken in relation to any Ministry of Defence accredited official statistics and if so, please share the details and a link to any resultant report.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
The UK Statistics Authority consists of two distinct organisations that operate separately:
- The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) which handles complaints relating to the Code of Practice for Statistics and undertakes regulatory reviews including compliance checks and rapid reviews.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) which produces official statistics and is overseen by the National Statistician.
Over the last 5 years OSR has received four complaints pertaining to the Ministry of Defence as set out below, of which one related to an accredited official statistics output. All of these are considered to relate to the application of the Code of Practice for Statistics.
2020-21: 0 total cases
2021-22: 1 complaint, unrelated to AOS
2022-23: 1 complaint, unrelated to AOS
2023-24: 1 complaint, related to AOS
2024-25: 1 complaint, unrelated to AOS
The National Statistician’s office has confirmed that no complaints were received from the Head of Profession for Statistics in MoD. Whilst not part of your request, we can also confirm that none of the cases raised with OSR were received from the Head of Profession for Statistics for MoD.
We can confirm that OSR has not completed any compliance checks or rapid reviews of accredited official statistics from the MoD in this time period. We published a compliance check of their murder, manslaughter and sexual offences in the Service Justice System statistics in March 2025, however these are not accredited official statistics.