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Parts of an ONS webpage Notices

Notices give users important information about the content, data or publication.

They are added as collapsable notice banners at the top of the page. They can be used on most pages on the website, including bulletins, articles, datasets and methodology pages.

When to use a notice

Use a notice to let users know if:

  • there are significant changes to future publication dates
  • there are minor changes to data that are not full corrections
  • the publication has been combined with another release, and the page or series is no longer being updated
  • the content has been moved to a new URL series (for example, because of a title change) and the page or series in no longer being updated
  • there are significant changes to the structure of a release (for example, if it has changed to dataset only)
  • there are minor changes to content that have no effect on the interpretation of the statistics or the reputation of the ONS, such as typing errors
  • all or part of the release has been suspended or discontinued, for example, because of problems collecting data
  • the publication series has been discontinued
Warning:

Notices cannot be used for describing data corrections or where a release of data has been superseded, whether because of a correction or a scheduled revision. Use a correction banner for these instead.

Writing a notice

Notices should:

  • provide only the essential information that a user needs; more detailed information can be given in the quality sections of the publication if needed and linked to
  • be frontloaded with the most important information first
  • be fewer than 50 words and no more than three sentences long
  • provide clearly written link text, for example, to the content that has superseded the release or to the relevant dataset or section; view more detailed links guidance (opens in a new tab) 

How to add a notice banner

Write the notice text

You will need to have a finalised draft of your notice text before submitting a general request. Please refer to the Examples of notice text section (opens in a new tab) . If you need any support writing your notice, contact content.design@ons.gov.uk (opens in a new tab) 

Use the standard notice wording we have provided if your publication change is because of the Outputs Review. This includes discontinuations, changes to frequency and changing releases to data-only publications.

Submit a general request

Create and complete a general request through the Publishing Hub (opens in a new tab) 

Include the following information:

  • the URL of the page or the most recent release in the series
  • the finalised notice text you want to add to the page
  • an updated next release date; use “Discontinued” if the release is no longer being published or “To be announced” if you are not sure when the next release may be
  • a deadline or completion date if the notice needs to be added to the page by a certain date

The request can be submitted any time before or after a release is published and will be sent to the Publishing team to action, usually within 48 hours, in line with the Publishing Service Level Agreement (opens in a new tab) . A content designer will check the notice text for house style, readability and spelling errors before a publishing officer adds it to the page.

Check the updated notice on the preview site

Your notice will be assigned to a publishing officer who will contact you to let you know it is available for checking on the preview website.

Publish

When you are happy with the preview site version, the publishing officer will publish the notice on the live website.

Examples of notice text

Change in title or location

This page has been superseded by the Economic activity and social change in the UK, real-time indicators page (opens in a new tab) . This will be the new title and location of the bulletin presenting the real-time indicators of economic activity and social change for 13 May 2021 and future releases.

The “next release” date should also be changed to “Discontinued”.

Suspension or discontinuation

As a result of our transformation journey (opens in a new tab) , this will be the last short-term international migration (STIM) bulletin using the International Passenger Survey (IPS) as its main data source. More detail is available in Section 4: Development of short-term migration statistics (opens in a new tab) .

The “next release” date should also be changed to “Discontinued”.

Discontinuation as a result of outputs review

This release has been discontinued. The last planned release was on [DD/MM/YYYY]. We remain committed to producing statistics on [general topic, for example, environment] and will continue to publish the latest statistics in [link to most relevant product].

The decision to discontinue this release was made based on [user feedback or other] as part of a wider ONS prioritisation exercise (opens in a new tab) .

Proposed discontinuation as a result of outputs review

We plan to discontinue this [name of release] publication from [DD/MM/YYYY]. The Office for National Statistics remains committed to producing statistics on [general topic, for example, environment] and will continue to publish the latest statistics in [link to most relevant product].

We welcome your feedback before making this change, which is part of a wider ONS prioritisation exercise (opens in a new tab) . Contact [team inbox] with any comments.

Potential quality issues with data

We have identified a minor quality issue that we are currently investigating. We do not expect this to affect our main findings, but some figures may change slightly. We will update this publication with corrected data as soon as possible.

Changes to publication frequency

We are changing the frequency of this publication from [weekly/monthly/quarterly] to [quarterly/annually/ad hoc]. This decision has been made based on [user feedback or other] as part of a wider ONS prioritisation exercise (opens in a new tab) .

Contact [team inbox] with any questions or feedback on this change.

Proposed changes to publication frequency

We plan to change the frequency of this release from [weekly/monthly/quarterly] to [quarterly/annually/ad hoc] as part of a wider ONS prioritisation exercise (opens in a new tab) .

We welcome your feedback before making this change. Contact [team inbox] with any comments.

Changing to a data only release

We have changed the way these statistics are published. We will continue to publish updated data for this release in the [insert dataset title and link] dataset but this accompanying [bulletin/article] has been discontinued. This decision has been made based on [user feedback or other].

For more examples of Notice text when changing to a data only release, see our Datasets guidance page (opens in a new tab) 

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Let us know how we could improve this page, or share your user research findings. Discuss this page on GitHub (opens in a new tab)