Heritage at Risk is an Official Statistic
Heritage at Risk Statistics Method Statement 2026
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 guidance and regulations set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics - Ensuring official statistics serve the public good, 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 '2026 Heritage at Risk: Official and Key Statistics' for England were released on 3 September 2026.
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 calculated, and then quality assured to ensure a reliable set of statistics. It also explains the limitations of the available data and its collection.
In 2026, we will again be publishing the official and key statistics in the consolidated tables that were introduced last 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 3 September 2026.
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 on the afternoon before 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
- Regional Director Midlands (Deborah Williams) in lieu of Director of Regions (Louise Brennan)
- Head of Socio-Economic Analysis and Evaluation (Adala Leeson)
- Communications Director (Katharine Grice)
- Head of External Affairs (Deborah Wall)
- Head of Media and Content (Rosie Ryder)
- Media Team Leader with responsibility for HAR (Alex Shaw)