LibGuides: Sociology and Politics: Statistics and Policy

UK statistics resources

UK Office for National Statistics
The main gateway to UK official statistics. Provides direct access to tables of data, full text publications and the latest official releases. Covers Britain's economy, population and society at national and regional levels. Updated daily
Office for National Statistics (ONS) - (Archive)
Archived statistical data is available through this archived website. The ONS website allows the user to find data via the release calendar or by browsing by themes, area, place or region. The 2011 Census for England and Wales data is also available.
National statistics institutes
A comprehensive list of links to official national statistics institutes around the world. Compiled by the UK Data Service.
Public Health Profiles
These profiles have been developed by Public Health England to support JSNA and commissioning to improve health and wellbeing, and reduce inequalities. The profiles allow you to:
- Browse indicators at different geographical levels
- Benchmark against the regional or England average
- Export data to use locally

Statistical data

Office for National Statistics This link opens in a new window
The main gateway to UK official statistics. Provides direct access to tables of data, full text publications and the latest official releases. Covers Britain's economy, population and society at national and regional levels. Updated daily.
Digimap Ordnance Survey Data Collection This link opens in a new window
An Edina service offering Ordnance Survey maps and map data to UK Higher Education users. Allows users to view and print maps of locations within the UK. Contains a Gazeteer facility. Maps can be dowloaded for use with GIS software. Registration info
UK Data Service (registration required) This link opens in a new window
UK and international survey and statistical data drawn from a range of respected sources including: United Nations, IMF, OECD, World Bank, International Labour Organization (ILO), International Energy Agency (IEA), Eurostat and UNIDO. Free registration required to access some parts of the database.
Passport (Euromonitor) This link opens in a new window
Market research data that analysts at Euromonitor have collated including consumer lifestyle reports, future demographics, country profiles, updates on consumer and industry trends, company information, market sizes and economic indicators. Passport covers more than 200 countries and regions, with a global outlook
World Factbook This link opens in a new window
Broad overviews of countries, briefly describing geography, people, government, economy, communications, transport, military and transnational issues.
Includes images of national flags and reference maps of continents and regions. Country profiles include both written and statistical data.

Sheffield City Council Open Data

Policy documents

These databases and websites give you access to Government and Parliamentary documents.

You can search for particular documents, e.g. a Green Paper, or Bill; for topics, e.g. health care; and people, e.g. a particular MP.

Public Bills before Parliament This link opens in a new window
This page provides links to the complete text of bills currently before Parliament listed in alphabetical order by title.
Details of the bill and debates connected to it are provided. When a bill is passed it becomes an Act, the text of which can then be found via the OPSI website.
House of Commons sessional papers (Command papers) This link opens in a new window
Provides the full text of selected Command Papers from 2004 - present.
Command Papers are presented to Parliament by a Government Minister, and can include green and white papers, treaties, responses to Select Committee reports, reports of Committees of Inquiry, and some departmental reports. Older papers can be found on the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers site.
UK Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window
This database provides full-text access to: Bills and Acts 1695-2005, Command Papers 1833-2005, House of Commons Papers 1715-2005, House of Lords papers 1714-1805, Hansard 1803-2005, Journals 1688-1834, Debates 1774-1805 and Histories and proceedings 1660-1743.
Parliamentary debates: House of Commons (Hansard) This link opens in a new window
HANSARD is a full-text database of the official report of the House of Commons. It contains Debates and Oral and Written Answers to Questions. Coverage is from the beginning of the 1988/89 parliamentary to the present.
A detailed search engine is included; you can search by date, MP or subject.The site also provides access to the debates of House of Commons Standing Committees. To access the House of Commons debates from the UK Parliament home page, click on the 'Parliamentary business' link at the top of the screen, then on the 'Publications and records' tab.
Parliamentary debates: House of Lords (Hansard) This link opens in a new window
HANSARD is a full-text database of the official report of the House of Lords - this is an edited account of debates.
Coverage is from Session 1994-95 to the present. There is a set of search categories: by date, by member and by subject. There are also volume indexes available from January 2001. To access the House of Lords debates from the UK Parliament home page, click on the 'Parliamentary business' link at the top of the screen, then on the 'Publications' tab.