You asked
Please kindly provide the number of people that have committed suicide in the UK since January 2020 until present (or as far as records permit).
Please also provide the previous 5 year average of suicides. (2015 to 2019)
We said
Thank you for your request.
Suicide data up to 2019:
Annual suicide statistics are available via the following link: Suicides in the UK. Our statistics are based on the date of registration. Therefore, our annual release is based on 2019 death registrations. Registrations for earlier years are also available in the "previous versions link".
Please note, the majority of suicides require an inquest, where a coroner investigates the death. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date of death and the date of death registration, referred to as a registration delay. Registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be 5 to 6 months on average.
The following publication may also be of interest: Suicides in England and Wales: provides Suicide deaths by registration date from 2011 to 2019.
Suicide data in 2020:
We produce provisional suicide data for England on a quarterly basis. This publication provides deaths that have been registered from January to September of 2020. This is for deaths registered in 2020, and due to the registration delay described above, many of these deaths will have occurred in 2019.
Our Suicides in the UK publication will be updated with 2020 data in September 2021.
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. Furthermore, as a central government department and producer of official statistics, we need to have the freedom to be able to determine our own publication timetables. This is to allow us to deal with the necessary preparation, administration and context of publications. It would be unreasonable to consider disclosure when to do so would undermine our functions.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. We recognise the desirability of information being freely available and this is considered by ONS when publication schedules are set in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The need for timely data must be balanced against the practicalities of applying statistical skill and judgement to produce the high quality, assured data needed to inform decision-making. If this balance is incorrectly applied, then we run the risk of decisions being based on inaccurate data which is arguably not in the public interest. This will have an impact on public trust in official statistics in a time when accuracy of official statistics is more important to the public than ever before.