Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, pursuant to the Answer of 28 October 2024 to Question 10678 on Deportation and Detainees, what steps she takes to ensure that her Department follows the Office for Statistics Regulation's guidance on data transparency.

The Statement of Compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics sets out how the Home Office and all Government departments should comply with the Code of Practice agreed by the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) and Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).

As referenced in the Ministerial Code, Ministers are mindful of the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice which defines good practice in relation to official statistics, though it is not for the Home Secretary to offer guidance to government on the public disclosure of unpublished data.

Our Head of Profession for Statistics meets regularly with the OSR to discuss statistics matters, including the department’s approach to handling requests for operational data that might not be routinely published. OSR have been supportive of the general approach this department has taken. In the note on embedding transparency in government written by the OSR Director General and published on 14^th October, the Home Office was cited as having demonstrated good practice in this regard.