Guidance

DfE official statistics: standards and policies

Outlines the standards DfE follows to produce official statistics.

• From: Department for Education
• Published: 23 April 2013
• Last updated: 30 July 2026
  Show all updates

  1. 30 July 2026

     Added ‘DfE statistical confidentiality policy and data management approach’, which replaces ‘Statistical policy statement on confidentiality’, ‘Statement of administrative sources’ and ‘statement of administrative sources: annex’. Also added ‘DfE public involvement and engagement strategy’, which replaces the ‘Statistical policy statement on user engagement’. Added ‘DfE statistical revisions and corrections’, which replaces ‘Statistical policy statement on revisions’. Also added ‘DfE release practice policy for official statistics’ and ‘DfE statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics’. Removed 'School census: data quality and processing'. Also removed ‘Performance tables attainment data: statement of administrative sources’ and ‘Performance tables: user survey and feedback’.

  2. 30 June 2026

     Added 'DfE statistical work programme' and 'Quality management of official statistics', which replaces 'Quality assurance of education statistics'.

  3. 5 February 2019

     Updated 'Statistical policy statement on revisions'.

  4. 24 January 2019

     Updated 'Policy statement on confidentiality'.

  5. 23 October 2018

     Added 'Pre-release access to official statistics order 2008'.

  6. 3 July 2018

     Added 'Hive IT - DfE data dissemination discovery' report.

  7. 22 February 2018

     Added 'Developing DfE Statistics in 2018'.

  8. 14 September 2017

     Added document 'School census: data quality and processing'.

  9. 29 June 2017

     Updated policy documents on 'Statement of administrative sources' and its annex and 'Statistical policy statement on revisions'. Added 'Quality assurance of education statistics'.

  10. 3 June 2015

      Added links to performance tables attainment data and a user survey.

  11. 23 May 2014

      Added 'Statement of administrative sources' and 'Statement of administrative sources: annex'.

  12. 11 March 2014

      Replaced 'Pre-release access to official statistics order 2008' with updated document.

  13. 7 March 2014

      'Statistical policy statement on user engagement' document added to page.

  14. 23 April 2013

      First published.

Applies to England

Documents

DfE statistical work programme

HTML

Quality management of official statistics

HTML

DfE statistical confidentiality policy and data management approach

HTML

DfE public involvment and engagement strategy

HTML

DfE statistical revisions and corrections policy

HTML

DfE release practice policy for official statistics

HTML

DfE statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics

HTML

Pre-release Access to Official Statistics Order 2008

HTML

Statistical quality principles and procedures

HTML

Hive IT - DfE data dissemination discovery

PDF, 4.11 MB, 29 pages

Details

Topics covered include:

• required policies and statements relating to official statistics production

• quality principles and procedures, including:

  • relevance
  • accuracy
  • timeliness and punctuality
  • accessibility and clarity
  • comparability
  • coherence
• compliance with the Pre-release Access to the Official Statistics Order 2008 (the operational arrangements for giving ministers and officials pre-release access to Department for Education official statistics before publication)