FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3321
You asked
Please supply the number of divorces applied for by each month, for the most recent five years of data that you hold.
For example:
January 2021 – 1,000
February 2021 – 2,000
We said
Thank you for your enquiry requesting monthly divorces from 2016 to 2021.
The latest analysis we hold is the annual publication Divorces in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) for 2019.
Data for 2020 is provisionally scheduled for release in February/March 2022.
As such, the information you have requested is considered exempt under Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future. This exemption is subject to a public interest test. While we recognise the desirability of information being freely available, we also acknowledge that public authorities must have the freedom to be able to determine their own publication timetables. This allows them to deal with the necessary preparation, administration, and context of publication. Furthermore, public interest is best served through the public having confidence that the information published by ONS is accurate and final. Release on an ad-hoc basis would not achieve this aim and will cause unnecessary confusion if they were to be misrepresented. In this case, exempting the information clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.
You may find the following user requested analysis which holds 2015 to 2018 data useful which has been released under the ONS Open Data policy:
We can produce bespoke analysis for data from 2015 to 2019 to create a 5-year data set of divorces by month in England and Wales. Information on divorce along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality and life event data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate).
Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.