During the coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic, we met the demands for rapid and real-time data to inform the local, national and international response and earlier this year were able to use preliminary information collected in Census 2021 to help understand vaccination data by occupation.
In certain exceptional circumstances, the National Statistician can give authority to share data with policymakers ahead of publication when it is important to do so for operational planning and decision making. This has been set out in earlier statements, for example Provision of early management information by the ONS to inform operational decision-making for the public good during the coronavirus pandemic - Office for National Statistics.
To this end we have provided preliminary counts of country of birth by local authority for Ukraine and neighbouring or relevant countries to help local and national emergency response planning.
Today we have published the data to make them available to all at the earliest opportunity.
The data are the best available at this point but have not yet been through all our census processing and quality assurance steps and the final results will differ. We are planning on publishing the first census results in early summer.
At all times, we have complied with important principles around proportionality, ethical oversight, security, and the need for regular reviews. All data produced have been anonymised and aggregated so no individuals are ever identifiable in any outputs we publish, in line with legislation and data protection regulations. To ensure confidentiality, and in line with our established policy on statistical disclosure control, no counts of less than 20 have been published in this output.
This arrangement is in line with guidance published by the Office for Statistics Regulation.