AQW 40375/22-27

Miss Nuala McAllister
Alliance Party
North Belfast

Tabled Date: 11/02/2026
Answered On Date: 09/03/2026
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail when figures from encompass will be considered official statistics, rather than official statistics in development.

Answer:

Published figures sourced from new sources such as encompass are considered to be ‘official statistics in development’, which are a subset of Official Statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics while their accuracy and trustworthiness is being refined. Caution must be exercised when using these figures, as they may not be directly comparable with legacy (pre-encompass) data. They are however judged to give a meaningful representation of what they measure and are of sufficient quality for publication and use.

Figures sourced from encompass will continue to be published as ‘official statistics in development’ until appropriate validations have been completed and the department is satisfied, they meet the robust criteria for official statistics standards.

The quality assurance of encompass data for official statistics purposes are ongoing. Furthermore, a review of the Official Statistics status will be considered for each statistical output separately, depending on the progress of their specific data validations.