This consultation asks your views on whether additional tick-box response options are required for a new ethnicity harmonised standard. It is part of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation team’s ongoing review of this standard. It is taking place alongside the ONS’s consultation on topics for Census 2031, which asks about user needs for ethnic group data alongside many other topics.

The new ethnicity harmonised standard will be recommended for use by data collectors across the GSS, including teams working on the next censuses in the UK. We expect the UK statistics organisations to consider this standard when developing questions. We expect the relevant census question to align to this standard in England and Wales. We will continue to work closely with teams across the UK to understand their requirements for the standard. Depending on the user needs of each UK nation, this may be delivered through a single version or a suite of harmonised questions.

Evaluation criteria

The evaluation criteria for this consultation have been published on the Government Analysis Function website:
Review of the ethnicity harmonised standard evaluation criteria that will be used for additional response options in the new standard

Consultation update

27 April 2026
We have published an update on this consultation on the Government Analysis Function website:
April 2026 update: consultation on user needs for additional response options in a future ethnicity harmonised standard