The Bank of England has published a revised version of its Statistical Code of Practice on its website. An accompanying article explains why revisions to the Code were needed; summarises the main changes; reports the outcome of a public consultation on the text; and indicates some areas where the Code continues to both affect and be affected by future developments.
The Bank last updated the Code of Practice in April 2007. It sets out standards for the collection, compilation and dissemination of data collected by the Bank for statistical purposes. The Bank's current Code rests upon seven key principles adapted from the National Statistics Code to reflect the specialised nature of the Bank's statistical operations and outputs. These principles summarise the Bank's objectives in seven aspects of its statistical practice. These concern the relevance, integrity, quality and accessibility of its outputs, the confidentiality of its inputs, the burden on data suppliers and the overall cost efficiency of the business process. A link to the revised Code and to a short article describing the background to and nature of the changes made in 2007 are set out in the resources section below.
As with the earlier Codes, the revised version is consistent with the requirements of the International Monetary Fund's "Special Data Dissemination Standard" and has much in common with other codes of practice for statistics. The Code is a statement of intent: while much is fully reflected in current practice, some aspects are more in the nature of work in progress.
To request a printed copy of the Statistical Code of Practice for the Bank of England, please contact the Data Reception team (Tel. 0207 601 5360, DataReception@bankofengland.co.uk ).
With effect from 1 October 2012 the Monetary and Financial Statistics Division has been
re-named as the Statistics and Regulatory Data Division. The Statistical Code of Practice documentation will be updated when it is next published.