UK Official statistics

These are government-produced or commissioned statistics that often form the basis for governmental policy.

Printed copies of many UK official statistics including the Annual Abstract of Statistics, Regional Trends and Social Trends, are kept on Level 4 of the Robinson Library.

The Internet is also an invaluable source here:

  • The UK Office of National Statistics (ONS) site:
    allows you to search the latest comprehensive range of official UK statistics, as well as providing free access to a proportion of recently released publications and press releases in downloadable formats.
If you can not find what you are searching for there, then its still worth remembering that many UK government departments include full text statistical publications on their own web sites.
Good examples are:
  • Department of Health which includes, figures on hospital and community health services, NHS workforce / expenditure and family health services.
  • The Home Office statistical bulletins
  • The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) provides recent statistics including the annual statistics of education and training for the UK and more detailed statistics relating only to England. You have the choice between downloading whole documents in PDF format or individual tables in Excel format.
  • NS Databank is a database of the major UK economic indicators produced by the government. Important annual datasets like UK National Accounts are included, as well as monthly and quarterly series such as the Retail Price Index. This service is free to registered users, with information updated monthly.