FOI Ref: FOI/2022/3570
You asked
Please supply the number of deaths due to suicide in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 in England.
We said
Thank you for your enquiry.
Suicides 2019 to 2020
Our statistics are based on the date of registration, therefore our latest annual Suicides in England and Wales release is based on 2020 death registrations. In the previous versions tab, you will find annual data for 2019.
If this does not meet your needs, we can create a custom output for suicide registrations in England and Wales using your specific date range. Special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries would fall outside of the Freedom of Information regime and should be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.
Suicides 2021
The majority of suicides require an inquest, where a coroner investigates the death. The amount of time it takes to hold an inquest causes a lag between the date of death and the date of death registration, referred to as a registration delay.
Registration delays for deaths caused by suicide tend to be 5 to 6 months on average.
We do produce provisional suicide data for England on a quarterly basis, with the latest update including deaths that have been registered from July to September of 2021. This is for deaths registered in 2021, and due to the registration delay described above, most of these deaths would have occurred in 2020.
Provisional November and December 2021 data will be published in April 2022.
As such, the information you have requested is considered exempt under Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future. Furthermore, as a central government department and producer of official statistics, we need to have the freedom to be able to determine our own publication timetables. This is to allow us to deal with the necessary preparation, administration and context of publications. It would be unreasonable to consider disclosure when to do so would undermine our functions.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. We recognise the desirability of information being freely available and this is considered by ONS when publication schedules are set in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The need for timely data must be balanced against the practicalities of applying statistical skill and judgement to produce the high quality, assured data needed to inform decision-making. If this balance is incorrectly applied, then we run the risk of decisions being based on inaccurate data which is arguably not in the public interest. This will have an impact on public trust in official statistics in a time when accuracy of official statistics is more important to the public than ever before.
If you would like to discuss your request further, please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.