FOI reference: FOI-2024-2126
You asked
I am writing to request the following information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000:
a) Detailed list of specific impediments or constraints that prevent ONS from producing regular annual releases of higher education student suicide data, in contrast to the current practice which is on an ad hoc or every three years basis.
b) Any documents, reports, or internal communications regarding the reasons behind these restrictions, including discussions on resource availability, data collection processes, methodological issues, or any other relevant factors.
c) Any assessments, studies, or internal communications held by ONS regarding the feasibility of producing regular annual updates for higher education student suicides, even if a comprehensive analysis is not conducted every year.
We said
Thank you for your query.
Higher education students are highlighted in the Suicide Prevention Strategy for England and the ONS is committed to providing high quality analysis on higher education student suicides in support of this Strategy.
We undertake engagement with both external stakeholders and internal colleagues on what areas of work to take forward. The ONS produces regular suicide statistics and publishes both an annual and quarterly release. We also publish a large amount of new analysis on different topic areas, such as prisoners, offenders in the community and veterans.
As mentioned in this previous FOI response, we are currently working on updating our previous analysis of suicides in higher education students which will provide updated data on suicides in higher education students. Unfortunately, it is not possible for the ONS to identify higher education students from information supplied on the death certificate in our mortality data. This means that to identify higher education student suicides, we must undertake data linkage between ONS mortality data and Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) student records. This data linkage is complex and takes a significant amount of time to complete and it’s for this reason that we cannot currently commit to producing regular statistics on higher education student suicides.
In the previous FOI response referenced above (previous FOI response), we have provided all email correspondence with the Department for Education since May 2022 on this topic.
We have not produced any documents or reports relating to constraints that prevent ONS from producing regular annual releases of higher education student suicide data.
We would be very happy to discuss our work in this space with you further. Please contact Health.Data@ons.gov.uk to arrange a further discussion if this would be helpful.