Security, Defence and International Relations

The Security, Defence and International Relations theme covers a range of defence and security statistics ranging from defence finance, export and import sales, and air passenger experience of security screening, to the manpower numbers and health of the Armed Forces. With regard to International Relations, the theme covers the breakdown of UK official aid flows from the Department for International Development (DFID) and other government departments and UK’s pledge to spend 0.7% of GDP on aid.

For the 2017-18 year, aside from the regular monitoring, we planned to conduct compliance checks on several Defence Official/National Statistics to help us and Ministry of Defence (MoD) ensure that the statistics maintained quality and value for the public domain. Three bulletins were reviewed in autumn: Monthly Service Personnel, Biannual Diversity, and Defence Departmental Resources. MoD should be commended on the presentation, clarity and quality of those statistics. For further information please refer to the published letters below. Throughout 2017-18, we are also working closely with DFID to support their increased understanding and use of the Code of Practice with the numerical information they produce. 

Contact: Kimberly Cullen