Warnings
Warning patterns are used to highlight essential quality limitations to the user. They can be used to highlight if:
- Experimental Statistics, a type of official statistics that are going through development and evaluation, have been used in the article
- the research or methods being presented are in the early stages of development (and not yet official statistics)
Use a grey warning box at the end of the Main points or Main changes section to make users aware of any quality issues around the statistics or methods.
For Experimental Statistics, use:
“These are Experimental Statistics. The [method/data source/estimates is/are] currently under [review/development], which means [brief detail about how this affects estimates or data quality]. We advise caution when using the data.”
Experimental Statistics should always be primarily published as a bulletin where they are the first release of new data. An article using the data can be published alongside the bulletin if more detailed analysis is needed.
For statistical research and methods, use:
“These are not official statistics and should not be used for policy- or decision-making. They are published as research into [a new/an alternative] method for producing [topic] statistics. We advise caution when using the data.”
Change the second sentence to describe your release. More information on the methods used and quality limitations of the data can be included in the Data sources and quality section.