Guidance

Release Practice Policy

Published 11 June 2026

As part of our commitment to transparency and public accountability, this policy sets out the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) approach to the orderly release of statistics. It covers the operational processes for releasing official statistics, including the arrangements for giving ministers and officials pre-release access to official statistics prior to publication. These arrangements are designed to maintain public confidence in the integrity of official statistics while allowing ministers to respond to questions and to comment or act on statistics covering policy areas for which they are democratically responsible.

Release process

DCMS pre-announces the publication of statistics up to 12-months in advance via the upcoming statistics release calendar on GOV.UK. Provisional release dates outline a 1 or 2 month expected release window. We will then give a specific release date and time at least four weeks ahead of publication, wherever possible.

Statistics publications are released on a timely basis to deliver value to our statistics users, whilst ensuring quality. Publication dates are only changed with approval from the Chief Statistician, and for a limited number of reasons, such as significant delays with data processing or data quality issues. We will communicate these changes via the release calendar on GOV.UK. We will always provide a reason when changing a confirmed and specific date.

Statistics are published at 9.30am on a weekday. If an alternative release time is ever required, we will seek agreement from the Director General at the Office for Statistics Regulation and communicate this via the upcoming statistics release calendar on GOV.UK.

Pre-release access

The phrase ‘pre-release access’ refers to the practice of making official statistics in their final form, and any accompanying written commentary, available to an eligible person in advance of their publication. Pre-release access is only granted where the public benefit is assessed to outweigh the detriment to public trust, as assessed by the Chief Statistician. The period of access is restricted to a maximum of 24 hours before their public release at 9.30am on the following day.

The rules and principles that govern pre-release access are specified within the Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008. These arrangements are designed to ensure that such access is justified, limited, controlled, publicised and complies with statutory requirements. Their purpose is to balance the public interest in trust in official statistics with that of enabling those with policy responsibility to act, answer questions, and provide responses at, or shortly after, the time statistics are published.

The number of people who have access is kept to a minimum. Where pre-release access to DCMS statistics has been granted, a list of those individuals who receive access will be provided within the ‘statistical release’ page for that particular release.

General principle to pre-release 

DCMS operates under the general principle that pre-release access to official statistics must be:

• allowed in circumstances where the public benefit that is likely to result from such access outweighs the detriment to public trust in official statistics likely to result from doing so,
• limited to the minimum number of persons deemed necessary to allow the Minister to either:
  • provide responses to questions, or make statements about those statistics at, or shortly after, their time of publication;
  • take action just before, at, or shortly after the time of publication.

Pre-release access is limited to those who meet the eligibility criteria. They include:

• Ministers
• Officials with responsibility for developing, maintaining, monitoring or implementing a policy area covered by the statistical release, and for providing ministerial briefing on that area.
• Other officials who have been assigned the responsibility to brief ministers or chief executives about the statistics in question, such as special advisers, policy advisers or analysts
• Departmental press officers responsible for managing communications with the media about the policy or statistics in question (including any immediate supporting staff)

Before anyone is granted pre-release access, we ensure that they fully understand and agree to the pre-release principles. We include guidance on pre-release access as a reminder with each statistics release.

Only those directly involved in the production and quality assurance of the statistics, or those who require the data for operational purposes, will be able to access statistics before the pre-release period begins. We will keep an internal record of who had access to the statistics before they were finalised.

Breach of conditions of release

In the event of a breach of the principles and rules set out in the legislation and described in this statement, the Chief Statistician will assess whether to notify the National Statistician and the Office for Statistics Regulation.The Office for Statistics Regulation may subsequently investigate in conjunction with the Chief Statistician, depending on the severity and risk the breach posed to the public trust of statistics.

Either way, DCMS will keep an internal record and take action to prevent a recurrence.