A Revised Statistical Code of Practice for the Bank of England

The Bank has updated the Code of Practice which it has operated since April 2004. The revised Code, effective from April 2007, sets out standards for the collection, compilation and dissemination of data collected by the Bank for statistical purposes. The Bank's 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 from the 2004 text are set out in the resources section below.

As with the 2004 Code, 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.