Government Statistical Service (GSS)

Naming and Coding Policy

Scotland
Statistics Geography Policy Cross-Organisation Group
SGP@gov.scot

Scottish Government • ISD Scotland • National Records of Scotland

Background

To address the issue of inconsistent standards for naming and coding of UK

geographies, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) implemented a new coding and
naming policy on 1 January 2011. This policy has already been separately and
independently implemented since 2004 by Scotland for all new or amended
statistical geographies.

Codes consist of a nine digit alpha-numeric code, and are referred to as GSS codes
where the GSS refers to Government Statistical Service. GSS codes currently exist
for more than 40 administrative and statistical geographies 1 in Scotland.

Full guidance2 for the coding and naming policy is provided by ONS. The purpose of
this document is to summarise the key points of the policy, with specific reference to
Scottish geographies.

1 Coding Structure and Practice

1.1 Format

The code consists of a 9 character alpha-numeric code (ANNNNNNNN) consisting of

two parts; the entity and the instance.

The first part (ANN) identifies the geographical entity (area type). The first alpha
character of the entity code indicates the country (or 'cross-border' status) within
which the entity is bounded. The 2nd and 3rd numeric characters will represent a
1
Current list of codes at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/sns/SNSRef/StanGeoCodeRegister
2
https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/geography/geographicalproducts/namescodesandlookups/
codehistorydatabasechd
specific geographic entity, but with no other intelligence in the code. Scotland has
been assigned the country designation ‘S’, and as such GSS codes for Scottish
geographies will have the format SNNNNNNNN. The characters T, U, and V have
also been reserved for Scotland.

The final 6 digits of the code represent the area instance. This instance will be
uniquely identified within the UK by its combination with the entity code. Instances
should not be coded with, and/or be based on, inbuilt intelligence (e.g. alphabetically
or hierarchically), as any later change (like renaming) that inevitably occurs might
upset this inbuilt intelligence. The nature of hierarchical relationships and any other
classification-type of intelligence must be recorded and managed elsewhere.

NOTE:

An exception to this rule is the coding of geographies such as Census Output Areas. These
geographies are generally coded in groups by Local Authority to help users with ranges of areas.
As Output Areas do not change within the inter-census period this is deemed acceptable. Upon
Local Government boundary reviews, wards will also normally be coded within groups of Local
Authorities, however, as council and ward boundaries can change in between review periods via a
statutory instrument, this ordering can become eroded over time.

Note that cross-border geographies will have instances that use the designation ‘K’.
An example of this would be the Travel to Work Areas geography managed by ONS.
Particular instances in this geography do not respect the border between Scotland
and England and are therefore coded with a ‘K’ prefix rather than ‘S’ (i.e. Berwick
and Carlisle).

1.2 Policy

Key principles of the coding policy are as follows:

 The coding system is not hierarchical and does not contain embedded
intelligence (other than the first country character).
 Codes cannot be re-used. Re-use of codes would be bad practice and
presents risks to the analyses of time-series geographic data.
 Except for a few special circumstances detailed below, a new instance of
the area will be created with a new code only when a change occurs to
the boundary of an area instance. For example, name changes alone do
not initiate a code change for the area instance. Note that name changes
are recorded elsewhere (in the Scottish Register of Geographic Codes).

Generally, GSS codes are only assigned to geographies that are required for
government administrative functions, legislation or publication of official statistics.
This definition can be interpreted relatively easily and consistently by the
consideration that - “if the geography did not exist, it would have to be created to
support a specific government business area”. The flow diagram in Figure 1.2 can
be used to identify whether a new geography requires a GSS code to be assigned.
Figure 1.2: Process for identifying whether a GSS code is required

2 Naming Practice

2.1 Policy

It is difficult to devise and implement any hard and fast policy that affects place
names. Names often have a lot of history and emotion attached to them and there
are also legislative requirements at the UK level around Welsh & Gaelic 3 languages
that need to be considered. Therefore, naming is afforded more flexibility than the
strict policy around coding.

3
The Gaelic Language (Scotland) Act 2005 was passed with a view to securing the status of Gaelic
as an official language of Scotland commanding equal respect to the English language.
With regards to naming in Scotland, there are number of principles that should be
adhered to:

 Names for area instances within a given entity should be, as far as
possible, unique across the United Kingdom.
 Sensitivities to Gaelic should be respected, giving preference to a Gaelic
name for a geographic area if one exists (e.g. Na h-Eileanan Siar is the
preferred English variant for the Western Isles).
 Where a geography is defined by a formal (i.e. legal) process, instances
will normally be named following what is recorded in legislation or legal
documents as the official names4.
 The use of the same name at different levels of a hierarchy should be
avoided (e.g. Fife could not be both a ward and a council area).
 The type of area (e.g. council, ward) should only be part of a name in
order to provide uniqueness (where, for instance, the same name cannot
be avoided). For consistency, this type-name should come at the end
and be applied to the higher level geography.
 Names can change without any other change to the attributes of the
instance; a name change alone does not result in a code change.
 Use of abbreviations should be minimised and standardised. 'St', without
the inclusion of a full stop, is only allowable as an abbreviation for 'Saint'
where it is part of the formal name; 'S' must not be used for 'South'.
 Where a name is shortened, there should be a single version established
by the entity owner. Such data must be recorded in a Code History
Database (CHD) or local gazetteer by the owner.
 The use of non-alphanumeric characters such as slashes and hyphens
should be minimised. The use of ampersands (‘&’) in place of ‘and’
should be avoided.
 Possessive apostrophes should be used.

NOTE:

Geographies with many instances (e.g. Output Areas) may not apply names due to the resources
required to define, agree and maintain them. In these cases the code is often used in place of the
name.

2.2 Presentation

The general principle for the presentation of entities or groupings of entities (for
example, wards within local authorities) is that the order of presentation at each level
of the grouping hierarchy is alphabetic. The names used should be consistent with

4
Exceptions may be noted when Gaelic is the preferred language.
what is recorded in the code register. This raises a couple of anomalies with respect
to Scottish Local Authorities, namely the City of Edinburgh and Na h-Eileanan Siar 5.

The official name given to the area under the jurisdiction of the City of Edinburgh
Council is ‘City of Edinburgh’. While in the past it has been commonplace to style
this as ‘Edinburgh, City of’, current guidance states that this shall be styled with its
official name to avoid issues caused by punctuation characters and the potential for
mis-matched columns. Thus, City of Edinburgh will be styled alphabetically under ‘C’.

Similarly, Na h-Eileanan Siar shall be styled alphabetically under ‘N’ to avoid

complications with grammar (it would not be appropriate to style this as ‘Eileanan
Siar, Na h-‘ as this loses meaning in the Gaelic language).

NOTE:

With regards to Na h-Eileanan Siar, it has previously been common practice to refer to the Local
Authority area generally as ‘Eilean Siar’ in publications – this is grammatically incorrect and should
be stopped. The name for the area as recorded in the code register is Na h-Eileanan Siar, which is
the preferred English variant for the area of the Western Isles expressed by the Council’s Gaelic
Committee. A further complication exists in that the formal legal name put forward by the Council
(effective from January 1st 1998) is the similar Na h-Eileanan an Iar, which is also used for
Parliamentary Constituencies. Both the preferred and legal Gaelic forms are considered
acceptable. Note that ‘Western Isles’ is an acceptable English variant (as is used in Health Board
boundaries), but it is preferred that the Gaelic form is used where possible.

3 Governance

3.1 Governance of GSS Codes in Scotland

ONS maintain a UK Register of Geographic Codes (RGC). The RGC's function is to

allow the coordinated issue of new codes and the management and maintenance of
code changes, and to maintain the relationship between active and archived code
ranges. In Scotland, a separate register of geographic codes 6 is published by the
Scottish Government’s Office of the Chief Statistician and Strategic Analysis
(OCSSA)7. All changes are passed onto ONS to be held on the RGC. For cross-
border or UK wide geographies, ONS normally lead on changes and consult with
stakeholders in Scotland to ensure co-ordination.

5
Note this is the preferred name to refer to the geographic area of the council (as recorded in the
code register), while Comhairle nan Eilean Siar refers to the organisation.
6
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/sns/SNSRef/StanGeoCodeRegister
7
The Scottish RGC is managed by the Scottish Government Geographic Information Science and
Analysis Team on behalf of OCSSA.