Heritage at Risk is an Official Statistic

In April 2009 Historic England was designated by Government as a provider of official statistics.

Some of the Heritage at Risk (HAR) statistics produced by Historic England are defined as official statistics.

As a designated provider of official statistics we follow the regulations set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics - Ensuring official statistics serve the public, published by the Office for Statistics Regulation and UK Statistics Authority, when producing and disseminating these statistics.

Historic England's response to the Code of Practice for Statistics

Publication date

The 'Heritage at Risk in England: 2025' statistics were released on 28 August 2025.

Objectivity

The HAR statistics have been published as a standalone document presenting only the figures without any analytical comment from Historic England. They have been produced by staff members working in an impartial way to produce statistics that are an accurate reflection of the available data.

Transparency and trustworthiness

The standalone Method Statement, published at the same time as the statistics, outlines how the HAR data is collected, how the statistics are produced, and then quality assured to ensure a reliable set of statistics. It also explains the limitations of the available data and its collection.

In 2025, we are publishing the annual key statistics in consolidated tables. This revised layout removes the duplication present in the previous layout and provides the data in a concise format. Please note that we are not publishing percentages this year. Please refer to our revised Method Statement for more information.

Pre-release access

No journalists or external organisations were given access to the data prior to 28 August 2025.

Access to the data before the publication date within Historic England was limited to those colleagues with direct involvement in the production of the HAR statistics. Those colleagues are primarily heritage at risk data specialists from the Central HAR and Strategic Planning Team and the IT Systems team (who maintain the database that the dataset is drawn from).

In addition, the following staff members at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and Historic England were given access to the HAR data 24 hours prior to its release to the public on our website:

From DCMS

• Head of Profession for Statistics, DCMS (Sarah Alloway-Lasher)
• Economic Adviser, Heritage Team, DCMS (Jose Seisdedos)

From Historic England

• Chief Executive (Duncan Wilson)
• Chief Executives Designate (Claudia Kenyatta and Emma Squire, job share)
• Director of Regions (Louise Brennan)
• Head of Socio-Economic Analysis and Evaluation (Adala Leeson)
• Head of Grants (Kath Buxton)
• Senior Responsible Officer for HAR (Natalie Gates)
• Director of Communications and Public Engagement (Katharine Grice)
• Communications Director (Deborah Wall)
• Public Engagement Manager with responsibility for HAR (Esther Blaine)
• Head of External Affairs (Rachel Case)
• Head of Media (Chris Collett)
• Media Manager with responsibility for HAR (Alexandra Shaw)