Disability harmonised standard
Disability harmonised standards provide a consistent approach for collecting and presenting disability data across government. They set out recommended questions, definitions and guidance to improve the comparability, coherence and usability of disability statistics, helping users understand differences and similarities between data sources. The current standards focus on long‑lasting health conditions and activity restrictions, with additional guidance available on impairments.
To collect data on disability in line with the Equality Act 2010 for Great Britain or the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 for Northern Ireland, the current recommendation is to use both of these standards together: Users can also collect data using the impairment harmonised standard. This will provide more information about what people self-report they can or cannot do. These questions were developed before the UK censuses in 2011.
Work to update the disability and impairment harmonised standards began following the publication of the harmonisation team workplan. Since then, the team have published findings from their research and early engagement work. These reviews outline the strengths and weaknesses of the current standard, user needs for disability data, and areas for potential improvement of the existing standards: Following the published recommendation on the future of population and migration statistics, including the recommendation for an England and Wales census in 2031, work on the disability and impairment harmonised standards was paused between July 2025 and May 2026 to consider and prioritise updates to the current harmonised standards ahead of Census 2031. This work was continued in May 2026, and will include two phases. Phase 1: The team will begin the next phase of their review with a short planning stage. This aims to ensure understanding of new user needs which may have emerged from other research and evaluation work taking place across government. It includes reviewing user needs identified in the recent topic consultations conducted for censuses across the UK . Phase 2: Following planning, the team will move into an “alpha” research stage. This will involve careful testing of improvements and changes to the questions used in the standards. Updates about the disability and impairment standards will be added to the GSS Harmonisation team workplan as they become available. If you are interested in these standards and would like to contribute to this work, or would like more information about the current standards, please email harmonisation@statistics.gov.uk.
Timelines
Harmonised standards and guidance are published in the Analysis Function guidance and research directory. The following have been published to date:
If you have questions about the disability standards or guidance, please email harmonisation@statistics.gov.uk.