You asked
I need to find out how the number of people with pre-release access to official statistics changed over time. I do not need to know the number of people who had access to each and every release of Gross Domestic Product, Consumer Price Inflation, Index of Production, Producer Price Inflation and Retail Sales from 2006 to 2017. One data point per year would be sufficient. Could you please collect this information only for the first release of each type in each year from 2006 to 2017? To satisfy this request, you would need to locate the pre-release lists for only 60 statistical bulletins (12 years times 5 types of statistics).
We said
Thank you for your enquiry regarding how the number of people who have been granted pre-release access (https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/prereleaseaccess) to official statistics have changed over time.
Please see the downloadable document accompanying this response. For each of the requested statistical releases (Gross Domestic Product, Consumer Price Inflation, Index of Production, Producer Price Inflation and Retail Sales), where possible, the document contains links to previously published pre-release access lists. Where a pre-published list is not available online, we have included copies of pre-release access lists from our records.
Unfortunately, it is only for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) release that we have been able to find pre-release access lists prior to 2011. Therefore, we do not hold this information. However, it seems likely that the missing pre-release access lists would have followed the same pattern as the lists for the GDP release, being limited to only a small number of recipients prior to 2009.