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GSS consultations

This page includes open consultations which are available to members of the Government Statistical Service (GSS). We value all voices across the community and encourage you to share your reflections through these short surveys.

If you have questions about the content on this page, require support, or would like to publicise your consultation, please email GSSNet@statistics.gov.uk.

Evaluation criteria published 

The evaluation criteria for this consultation were published in the Analysis Function guidance and research directory on 4 March 2026:

Consultation closed 

This consultation closed at 11:59pm on 4 February 2026.   

Thank you to everyone who took part in this consultation. We will begin analysing the responses and will publish a consultation update around 12 weeks after the consultation closing date. 

Summary

This consultation asked your views on whether additional tick-box response options are required for a new ethnicity harmonised standard. It was part of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation team’s ongoing review of this standard. It took place alongside the Office for National Statistics (ONS)’s consultation on topics for Census 2031, which asked about user needs for ethnic group data alongside many other topics. 

The new ethnicity harmonised standard will be recommended for use by data collectors across the GSS, including teams working on the next censuses in the UK. We expect the UK statistics organisations to consider this standard when developing questions. We expect the relevant census question to align to this standard in England and Wales. We will continue to work closely with teams across the UK to understand their requirements for the standard. Depending on the user needs of each UK nation, this may be delivered through a single version or a suite of harmonised questions. 

Find out more about the consultation:  

The GSS Vision: Strength in Numbers was published last year. The GSS Metrics Task and Finish Group  launched a short survey in August to help monitor progress on the ambitions, what you feel is working, and what we should focus on improving. The survey closed in September.

Findings were reported to NSEG in November 2025, and updates were provided to members on action we are taking in the GSS Conference (November 2025). An update on the GSS vision was subsequently published in the February 2026 GSS vision update.