Guidance

Public involvement and engagement strategy

Updated 28 April 2026

Introduction

This statement sets out our approach to engaging with users of official statistics produced by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ). This approach is intended to ensure we maximise the value of our statistics and focus on ensuring they serve the public good. In line with the Code of Practice for Statistics, we seek to make sure all our statistics are relevant, clear and accessible.

We have various established fora and mechanisms for capturing user needs, as set out below. We are always keen to hear from new users and welcome feedback. This can be provided using the contact details published alongside all our specific outputs or to energy.stats@energysecurity.gov.uk.

Our users

Our statistics are of interest to a range of users and stakeholders, including:

• the public
• parliament
• ministers and policy makers within DESNZ and its agencies
• local authorities
• devolved administrations and other government users
• the energy industry
• special interest groups
• international organisations
• researchers and academics
• the media

The energy landscape is evolving to meet the challenges of climate change, energy security and the cost of living. At the same time, maintaining consistent time series remains important for many of our statistical series. So, while we are responsive to emerging needs we also keep an eye on maintaining coherent time series for current and future users.

General principles

The following principles shape how we involve and engage users of DESNZ statistics:

• users are at the heart of our statistics
• we welcome feedback on all our statistics
• we engage users on key changes to our statistics
• we work with other producers to promote coherence for users
• we are committed to ensuring our statistics are clear and accessible

Users are at the heart of our statistics

We recognise that the value of our statistics comes from meeting the needs of our wide range of users. This is an ongoing process, reflecting the evolving nature of the energy sector. We engage users in multiple ways:

• all statistics producers proactively engage with colleagues in DESNZ to ensure our outputs provide a robust evidence base to inform and monitor departmental policies and operations
• we work with colleagues in devolved governments, particularly where our statistics provide UK coverage
• in addition to ongoing dialogue, many statistical series have formal mechanisms, such as steering groups, and there are internal governance structures to ensure regular engagement takes place at key points in the statistical cycle
• we maintain an active dialogue with data providers, including visiting key suppliers, to understand their data and ensure they are aware of how we are using it
• we send e-mail notifications to alert users when statistics are released. Users can subscribe to receive these here
• we announce our statistics releases via our X account, DESNZ statistics (@DESNZ_stats) / X.
• we attempt to reach new users through various means including presenting at conferences, publishing articles and blogs, and presenting at cross-government meetings

We welcome feedback

We seek feedback via various mechanisms:

• we actively welcome feedback on all our published statistics. Contact details for the teams responsible are provided on all releases
• comments and queries sent to our mailboxes are also used to understand emerging user needs and to identify areas for improvement
• our annual Work Programme sets out our overarching priorities and key proposed changes for our statistics. It is informed by user needs as well as being another vehicle for communicating with users and inviting feedback

We are committed to responding to suggestions, proposals and challenges from users.

We engage users on key changes

We keep our statistics under review to ensure they use the most appropriate sources and methods as well as meeting user needs, within available resources.

• where feasible, planned changes to the content or methodology of our outputs will be set out in advance, often in the previous release, with an opportunity to comment
• we seek feedback on proposed material changes to outputs via a more formal user engagement process, often published alongside a release or as an article in Energy Trends and circulated to known users
• we publish a summary of responses to any consultations, outlining actions we have taken as a result of comments received
• any revisions to our outputs, including minor error corrections, are indicated alongside our releases to ensure users are aware of any changes we have made and the associated impact. Further information is available in our Revisions policy

We promote coherence

We actively engage with other departments to help users find and interpret the statistics they need.

• we are an active member of the GSS Environment, Climate & Nature Theme Group
• we work closely with other departments on cross-cutting areas. This includes engaging with:
  • Defra and ONS on greenhouse gas emissions
  • MHCLG on energy use and performance in buildings
  • DWP and HMRC on income and benefits
  • ONS on many areas including climate change and economic statistics
  • Ofgem on pricing, consumer issues and other areas of common interest
• we work with Devolved Administrations to promote comparable statistics on devolved matters where possible, or to understand any differences where results are not comparable, in order to explain them clearly to users
• we participated at the first Statistics Assembly and continue to collaborate with other departments on the recommendations
• we participate in the GSS User Engagement champions network, using this to identify and share good practice

Our statistics are clear and accessible

We publish over 100 official statistics releases each year. Details on how we ensure managed, transparent release of these is set out in our Release Practice policy.

We aim to ensure the presentation of our statistics is accessible and meets the needs of different users:

• we publish results in a range of formats. Most of our releases comprise accessible spreadsheets containing tables together with an html or pdf summary containing clear commentary and charts to show headline results. Alternative formats are available on request
• we produce additional outputs where a need has been identified and is technically feasible on gov.uk or an available alternative. For example:
  • some of our series include summary factsheets;
  • we publish an interactive map which allows users to explore our published domestic consumption, energy efficiency and fuel poverty statistics at various geographical levels;
  • Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES) includes a flat file format.
• all our official statistics are accompanied by clear Notes to help users understand and interpret the results. We also publish detailed Technical and Methodology documents alongside our more complex outputs for specialist users
• where possible, we will make raw data available for users who wish to carry out their own analysis. For example:
  • the National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (NEED) includes a record-level anonymised dataset, and a data explorer, from which users can build their own tables
  • similarly, we publish stacked data for subnational electricity and gas consumption
  • property level consumption data is made available to accredited researchers via Trusted Research Environments, such as the Secure Research Service
  • the Public Attitudes Tracker and the Fuel Poverty teams deposit anonymised datasets with the UK Data Service
• the majority of our outputs comply with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 legislation. (See Annex 1 for more details)
• we keep the presentation of our statistics under review and keep up to date with emerging best practice. This is also informed by active participation in the GSS Presentation and Dissemination networks
• we publish at the lowest level of disaggregation that is feasible within resource, disclosure and quality constraints, where a user need has been identified for low level results. For example, many of our statistics on household energy schemes are published at parliamentary constituency level in response to queries and interest in these data
• we contribute to the ONS Explore Local tool, providing statistics on domestic median electricity and gas consumption (kWh) and greenhouse gas emissions per capita

Annex 1 - How accessible are our statistics

We are committed to making our statistical outputs accessible. Following the introduction of The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the “accessibility regulations”) we reviewed our official statistics outputs.

When the regulation was introduced, energy statistics were published by BEIS. In accordance with the accessibility regulations, we assessed the impact of making all statistics published between 23 September 2018 and 23 September 2020 fully accessible. This was deemed to be a disproportionate burden for the following reasons:

1. BEIS published around 350 statistical publications in the period 23 September 2018 to 22 September 2020. The majority of these publications were not fully accessible. Making all publications fully accessible would have had large resource implications, which would significantly impact on our ability to meet the current statistical needs of our users.
2. Users of routine regular statistics bulletins should only access the most recently published iteration, which may include revisions, methodological improvements and changes, and incorporates retrospection. The latest iteration thus generally supersedes all earlier iterations.
3. Google Analytics evidence demonstrated that usage is high for the most recent iteration only, falling to negligible levels after the release of subsequent iterations, so actual usage did not support a need to proactively reproduce earlier iterations. For ad hoc releases the same trend was observed, indicating ad hocs are of primary interest close to the time of release, and this interest does not persist.

After September 2020, there were a small number of statistical series where the elements of the latest release were not fully accessible. In particular, some of our spreadsheets were not clearly structured with labelled tables, and labelled headings. Some columns headings were blank and some workbook tabs did not have a clear title. This did not meet success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships). These issues have been resolved for more recent releases and we now publish accessible versions of all our spreadsheets. As the latest version of many of our releases supersedes the previous one, we recommend these are used.

We publish an increasing number of documents in html format but also still publish some official statistics documents as pdfs. Some of these may contain complex tables with merged cells, which makes it difficult for people using a screen reader to determine the correct reading order. This does not meet WCAG 2.1 success criterion 1.3.1 (info and relationships). Where possible we will try to simplify the tables or make sure they are tagged properly for screen readers.

In line with the accessibility regulations, we are committed to providing a specific statistical publication in a different format if requested. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (in Great Britain) and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland (in Northern Ireland) are responsible for enforcing the accessibility regulations. If you are unsatisfied with our response to any such request from DESNZ, you may contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service or the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland.