Guidance

Revisions and corrections policy

Updated 17 July 2026

Introduction

The Department for Business and Trade (DBT) produces official statistics in line with practices required in the Code of Practice for Statistics. This statement sets out the department’s commitments on revisions and corrections (standard 3.9).

Due to the complexity of revisions and corrections, policies for different individual DBT outputs may vary from this central policy. Any such differences will be detailed in the respective publication.   

Scheduled revisions

A scheduled revision is where statistics are initially published as provisional, which means that they are subject to change. At a later scheduled date, as announced on the upcoming statistical releases on GOV.UK, the statistics will be revised and reissued.

Statistics published as provisional should be clearly marked by a superscript ‘p’ next to each provisional figure and include information on the reasons why the data is provisional.

Once data initially published as provisional is made final, the ‘p’ markers should be removed and any figures that have changed should be marked with an ‘r’. Information on the reasons why the data has been revised should be provided.

Corrections

Corrections to statistics will be made if errors are found or if figures are amended because of changes to methodology or definitions of the data collection. The scale and nature of the change will be clearly declared alongside corrections.

Where an error has been found, the Chief Statistician and/or Head of Profession for Statistics should be notified as soon possible. They should be given details of the error, its scale and proposed corrective actions.

The Chief Statistician and/or Head of Profession for Statistics will decide if a major or minor error has occurred and advise the team responsible for the publication of any required corrective actions.

Major errors are errors which have a significant impact in the use made of the data, for example where the overarching message changes. These errors should be corrected as soon as possible by reissuing the statistics with the corrected figures. In such circumstances key users and/or ministers may be alerted.

Minor errors are all other errors which are not classified as major errors. These can be corrected in slower time as appropriate (always within 12 months) and can be timed to coincide with, but are not restricted to, the release of new editions of statistical products.

In cases where errors are found in time series that appear in more than one edition, the errors should be corrected in the most recent edition only. Older editions need not be corrected.

Where changes are made to methodology or to definitions in a time series, corrections to the historical data in the time series should be considered to bring it in line with the new methodology or definitions. This may not be possible and depends on the data availability and the amount of work involved. The requirements of the users should be considered when making such decisions.

If an error is identified but corrected figures are not yet available due to a need for further investigation, a note should be added to the statistics to explain the situation, making it clear the figures are subject to change.

Corrections should be shown by the addition of a superscript ‘r’ next to figures that have been corrected. This should be accompanied by a note explaining the reason for and the scale of the correction. Corrections will only be marked in the first edition of each publication that the corrected figures appear in. If the figures then appear again in future editions. they will not be marked as corrected.

The report should state when it was first published and when it was revised.

In cases where errors are corrected in cumulative spreadsheets, that is, where the latest data is added to a spreadsheet, which then replaces the previous edition on GOV.UK:

• in the first edition after revision, corrections should be shown by the addition of a superscript ‘r’ next to figures that have been corrected. This should be accompanied by a note explaining the reason for and the scale of the correction
• in subsequent editions, the ‘r’ marker and original note should be removed from the spreadsheet and replaced by a note explaining what was revised, the reason for and scale of the correction
• the old uncorrected publication will be removed but should be filed and available on request
• steps should be taken to determine what corrective actions, training and/or communications are needed to prevent similar errors from occurring in the future. The emphasis is on learning from mistakes and improvement

Parliamentary questions

There should be no instance in which a Parliamentary question (PQ) response is expected to be revised at a later date. If data is not currently held in a format that enables a sufficient response to the PQ, an explanation should be given for why an answer could not be provided.

If a PQ answer is found to contain an error, a correction needs to be made. The corrected answer will appear on the Parliamentary website alongside the earlier response in a ‘correction to the official report’.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).