On 1 April 2009 Arts Council England became a provider of official statistics under the extended scope of the Statistics and Registration Act 2008.
This means that when the Arts Council produces, manages and disseminates official statistics we strive to abide by the Code of Practice for Official Statistics published by the UK Statistics Authority in January 2009.
The Code sets out a number of important principles and practices to ensure that official statistics meet the needs of government and society and are both trustworthy and trusted.
As a result you can expect the Arts Council to:
- be clear about who our official statistics are for, how they are used and how they inform decision-making
- produce official statistics according to scientific principles and to a level of quality that meets users’ needs
- manage and present official statistics impartially and objectively
- make reports on official statistics available to all and easy to access
One of the most important requirements of the legislation relates to the way in which official statistics are released publicly.
Whenever the Arts Council releases a new report on an official statistic you can be confident that only a small number of Arts Council staff will see the report and the data it is based on prior to release:
- a small number of named senior staff will see the report no more than 24 hours before it is published
- prior to that, the data will only be seen by researchers and analysts for production, publication and quality assurance purposes
This means that our official statistics will be released into the public domain with sufficient factual information to enable users to interpret the figures, and any comment from the Arts Council about what the figures might mean will be provided separately.
If you have an enquiry that requires information from official statistics data that is still being compiled, we will not be able to share it with you until the headline information is published.
Arts Council official statistics 2009/10
In 2009/10 the Arts Council will produce four official statistics:
- annual submission for regularly funded organisations
- arts attendance figures from the Target Group Index survey
- Stakeholder Focus, a regular survey to track perceptions and experiences of the Arts Council among our key stakeholder groups
- A Night Less Ordinary - figures on the progress of the Arts Council initiative, which gives free theatre tickets to under-26-year-olds
The Official statistics publication timetable sets out the release dates for these surveys and the names of our staff who will have access to the data prior to release.
The Arts Council also disseminates data from two other sources that are classified as official statistics but produced and released by other organisations:
- Taking Part, the national survey of culture and sport participation produced by the DCMS
- Active People, the local survey of culture and sport participation managed by Sport England
In disseminating data from these sources the Arts Council abides by the principles of the Code of Practice as instructed by the producing organisations.
Finding out more
The Arts Council’s lead contact for official statistics is Catherine Bunting, Director of Research. If you have any questions or complaints about our official statistics contact Catherine at catherine.bunting@artscouncil.org.uk or on 020 7973 6835.
For more information on the official statistics produced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and other culture and sports agencies please see the DCMS website.
Any complaints that relate to professional integrity, quality or standards will be forwarded to the National Statistician. The UK Statistics Authority is entitled to assess the Arts Council’s compliance with the Code of Practice and to deal with any breach. For more information on the UK Statistics Authority and the Code of Practice see www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk.
