Statistics

ScotCen appointed to review Pre-release Access to Official Statistics in Scotland

February 18, 2025 by Office of the Chief Statistician No Comments | Category Statistics Policy

The Office of the Chief Statistician has appointed The Scottish Centre for Social Research (ScotCen) to independently review current processes around pre-release access to Official Statistics in Scotland.

Pre-release access is the practice of providing access to official statistics in their final form prior to publication. Pre-release access is restricted to a limited number of individuals for a specific purpose, such as to allow Ministers to comment on statistics in an informed way when they are published.

The rules around pre-release access in Scotland are set out in the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008.

The Office of the Chief Statistician announced its approach to reviewing pre-release access in a blog post published in response to the Lievesley review of the UK Statistics Authority where we said we are open-minded to the future of pre-release access for Scottish statistics. The Lievesley review recommended that devolved administrations should remove access to pre-release statistics.

The independent review will also consider the impact of the reduction and removal of pre-release access to economic and market sensitive statistics in Scotland introduced in the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Act 2021.

The review is expected to conclude in summer 2025.

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