Statistical designation

This is an Official Statistics publication

Public Health Scotland has authority to produce official statistics on any matter in accordance with The Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008, The Official Statistics (Scotland) Amendment Order 2019 and the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007.

All official statistics should comply with the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice which promotes the production and dissemination of official statistics that inform decision making. They can be formally assessed by the UK Statistics Authority’s regulatory arm for Accredited official statistics status.

Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards.

Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or through the OSR website.

Visit the UK Statistics Authority website for more information about the Code of Practice and Official Statistics.

Visit our website for further information about our statistics and PHS as an Official Statistics producer.

Pre-release access

Under terms of the "Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008", PHS is obliged to publish information on those receiving Pre-Release Access ("Pre-Release Access" refers to statistics in their final form prior to publication). The standard maximum Pre-Release Access is five working days.

Shown below are details of those receiving standard Pre-Release Access.

Standard pre-release access:

• Scottish Government Health Department
• NHS Board Chief Executives
• NHS Board Communication leads

About Public Health Scotland (PHS)

PHS is a knowledge-based and intelligence driven organisation with a critical reliance on data and information to enable it to be an independent voice for the public’s health, leading collaboratively and effectively across the Scottish public health system, accountable at local and national levels, and providing leadership and focus for achieving better health and wellbeing outcomes for the population. Our statistics comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics in terms of trustworthiness, high quality and public value. This also means that we keep data secure at all stages, through collection, processing, analysis and output production, and adhere to the Office for National Statistics ‘Five Safes’ of data privacy.​