Quarterly public sector employment statistics in Scotland: revisions policy

1. Outputs covered

This revisions policy describes how planned (sections 2 & 3) and unplanned (section 4) revisions will be published. This policy covers all releases of the output, whether through statistical news release, web release or release of data sets. The specific releases relevant for this output are:

Quarterly Public Sector Employment in Scotland via web release

These outputs are not market sensitive and the associated provisions in the National Statistics Protocols do not apply.

2. The cycle of planned revisions

This is a quarterly output and the planned revisions cycle will be as follows:

Category	Frequency	Scope of Revision	Reasons
1	Each Quarter (t)	The previous quarter (t-1) will be revised along with any other quarters, as required.	This revision will take into account later information from respondents or data providers (such as the NHS). Include any minor corrections.
2	Each year (with the 3rd quarter release published in December)	Revisions will be taken back to the start of the time-series (where appropriate).	This revision will: - Take account of any later information collected. - Include any minor corrections. - Include classification changes. - Take account of latest figures from the Annual Civil Service Employment Survey and to replace previous estimates.
3	Quarter 1	Any required revisions to the Armed Forces data will be made. This will lead to Total Public Sector Employment and total private sector employment to be revised.	This revision will take into account the latest published Ministry of Defence statistics.
4	Occasionally - announced 3 months in advance	Applicable to all time-series.	This revision will take in: - Improvements in methodology - Revision of coverage - Updating of reference point

Category 1, 2, and 3 revisions will be published at the scheduled release date for the output, e.g. revisions to first quarter will be published with new second quarter data.

3. Arrangements for advance notes and back data

Where category 4 revisions are planned, an advance note describing the scope and reasons for the revisions will be published, attached to the quarterly release, three months before the revision takes place. Where appropriate the historical time series back to Q1 1999 will be provided. Notes detailing the change and outlining the potential impact will be included in the relevant publication.

4. Unplanned revisions

From time to time revisions need to be made outside of this timetable. Examples of such revisions include improvements to methodology, revisions to data that feed into Public Sector Employment data sets and the discovery of incorrect data through our quality assurance procedures. Each of these revisions will be examined to see if the effects are significant in terms of the degree of change or whether the changes affect the story the data portray.

If revisions arising through improvements to methodology or changes to source data are found to be insignificant, they will be introduced in the next planned set of revisions according to the timetable above. However, if these revisions are thought to affect analysis or are sufficiently large, they will be introduced more quickly.

If incorrect data are discovered after publication, these too will be examined for their impact. Where the changes are significant, an errata will be issued as soon as is practicable, whilst minor corrections will be included in the next planned release. In all cases a full explanation will be included in the release.

5. Identification of revisions

Revisions to tables are marked with an 'r'