As Peta says, "the onus is on us to increase understanding and recognition of the work we do, to demonstrate our credibility in performing a valuable public service." For this reason, we also sought to present statistical information about the Commission in a slightly different way in this year's Review. In particular, we tried to explain more clearly what exactly happens to the thousands of complaints we receive. As total complaint numbers grow, this becomes ever more important.

So, although we received a total of over 37,000 individual complaints, the number of distinct issues being raised was much smaller - for instance, more than 25,000 people complained about Jan Moir's piece on the death of Stephen Gately but it was fundamentally one case on which the Commission could make one ruling. Overall, there were 1,731 discrete cases (accounting for many thousands of complaints) which could either be resolved through mediation or ruled on by the PCC. This included a record number of complaints with merit and a record number of complaints that were successfully settled to the satisfaction of the complainant.

The issues raised by those who use the PCC's services are manifold and varied. Some things fall outside our remit: adverts, TV programmes and hard to complete Sudoku puzzles, for instance (to find out more click here). But in terms of the complaints we can actually take forward, two concerns are raised considerably more often than any other - accuracy of reporting and invasion of privacy.

In the Annual Review for 2009, we set out some information on the proportion of meritorious complaints that had an accuracy aspect (87.5%) and that raised concerns about privacy intrusion (21.4%). But what does this mean in real numbers and can the figures be broken down further? Well, looking still at the complaints which had merit (i.e. those which were either upheld or in relation to which newspapers took or offered remedial action), out of a total of 738, 645 included concerns about inaccuracy. 158 raised issues about privacy (and remember one complaint can be made under more than one Clause of the Editors' Code of Practice).

This privacy total, however, is comprised not just of complaints that were made under the most obvious part of the Code - Clause 3 (Privacy). In fact, there are several parts of the Code which relate to privacy matters and in order to work out the total figure of 158 we included complaints made under Clauses 3 (Privacy), 4 (Harassment), 5 (Intrusion into grief or shock), 6 (Children), 7 (Children in sex cases), 8 (Hospitals), 9 (Reporting of crime) and 11 (Victims of sexual assault). Of these, Clause 3 is the most often cited (94 cases, with Clause 5 also heavily noted - in 48 cases in 2009. Clause 4 was cited in 19 cases, Clause 6 in 16. None of the others made it to double figures.

And these, of course, are just the complaints with merit. There were a further 170 cases (accounting for over 600 complaints - not including the Moir case and a number of complaints orchestrated by the BNP) where claims of privacy invasion were not upheld by the Commission.

All this serves as a reminder of the extent of the PCC's work in this vital area. When set against the relatively small number of cases being dealt with by the courts, it perhaps takes on even greater significance.

And this does not take into consideration the less visible work we do, often before publication, to prevent intrusions from happening in the first place. To find out more, read the third section of our Annual Review, which takes a look behind the scenes at the Commission.