Paul Matthews

In our latest guest blog, Paul Matthews, Head of Profession for Statistics in Scottish Government, responsible for capability and capacity of the statistics profession, talks about his passion for improvement and how the system can make the statistics that are produced better and have more impact. This blog coincides with the closing of our consultation on proposed changes to the Code of Practice for Statistics, for which we plan to present our findings in the coming months.

I hear a lot of myths about the Code of Practice for Statistics. I hear things like:

‘I know [insert topic here] is very relevant at the moment, but we haven’t preannounced so we can’t publish for at least 4 weeks, because that’s what the Code says’, or
‘We will have issues with the Code of Practice and trustworthiness if we break a time series’, or
‘We need to publish this as a management information release because the Code won’t allow us to publish as official statistics due to quality’.

In these examples, we are thinking of the Code as telling us what we can’t do. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe we tend to think of it as the rule book that we must obey. Maybe it’s because having the ‘rules’ is comforting for us as statistics producers and can give defence if we are challenged.

A key, not a lock

Rather than seeing the Code as telling us what we can’t do, I see it as an enabler to tell us what we can. In other words, it is a key that facilitates the practical release of statistics that provide value for society rather than a lock that prevents us from being responsive and innovative. And this is equally true for the existing version of the Code of Practice and the draft Code 3.0.

Thinking of the Code as a key isn’t carte blanche for us to do whatever we want. There are still risks we need to work through. But in my experience, the Code tends to be supportive of sensible pragmatic things for users that help build trust and transparency rather than being about protocol for protocol’s sake.

Using the Code as a key

I spent a lot of time looking at the Code of Practice when I developed statistical strategic priorities for the Scottish Government Statistics Group. The priorities are about how we can improve statistical work to focus on what provides the greatest value in producing statistics for the public good. It means that there are things we will need to deprioritise given our finite resources.

Lots in this is informed by the enabling nature of the Code. For example:

Using user engagement to help inform what users want, what we can discontinue or deprioritise, and being transparent with analysis plans to convey what we’re doing.
Greater clarity and impact of communications to enable publications to be focused and streamlined.
Greater use of data sources where timeliness trades off against accuracy, or greater use of granular-level data where appropriate to provide useful new analysis that is fit for purpose for users’ needs.

We have had great support and advocacy for what we’re trying to do in Scotland from everyone in OSR, and it gives us confidence that how we’re innovating is in line with how the Code was designed. As Ed Humpherson said in his response to us on the priorities:

“We support your approach and there are several features that we regard as best practice, including the identification and communication of priorities for each analytical area; the involvement of users; and the openness about the potential for suspensions or changes to some of your current outputs… we certainly would not want to require you to keep all of your current range of statistical outputs if they were no longer aligning with user need”.

When Code 3.0 is finalised, all statistics producers should read it carefully and use it as a key to enable opportunities in the statistics they produce.

That’s the secret, after all!

Following the publication of our Analytical leadership: achieving better outcomes for citizens report in March 2024, we are running a series of blogs to highlight examples of strong analytical leadership in practice. Analytical leadership is a professional way of working with data, analysis or statistics that ensures the right data are available for effective policy and decision-making to improve the lives of citizens. Everyone in government can demonstrate analytical leadership, regardless of their profession or seniority by drawing on the six enablers of analytical leadership and a ‘Think TQV’ approach.

The latest blog in this series is from Paul Matthews, a Senior Statistician working in the Office of the Chief Statistician (OCS) in Scottish Government. Paul talks about Scottish Government’s approach to improve the leadership capability of statisticians in Scottish Government through its leadership programme entitled ‘Fit for the Future’.

Scottish Government’s ‘Fit for the Future’ programme has clear relevance to our analytical leadership findings, particularly the importance of ‘Fostering an evidence-driven culture’, ‘Embedding structures to support evidence’ and ‘Investing in analytical capacity and capability’.  Paul also highlights the necessity for statisticians to ‘Collaborate across organisations to add value’ by working with other analytical professions that also have a leadership role to play in ensuring the right data and analyses are available for both government and the public.

What does analytical leadership look like for us?

As per the OSR Analytical Leadership report, we see analytical leadership being about the right data and analyses being available in government. Often this requires change both in terms of what statistics we produce and how we produce them to maximise our analytical capacity and impact in line with the pillars of trustworthiness, quality and value.

Our statisticians in Scottish Government are among the architects to make this change happen, often working with other analytical professions to ensure that suitable data and evidence is required for policy colleagues, Ministers and the general public. Statisticians should have the best oversight of the data and resources to their disposal to balance against the wide range of user needs to make decisions about what statistics to produce. 

But there’s more required to make this a reality:

Statisticians need to have the focus, skills and energy to improve our statistics
Everyone in statistics teams have a role to play.

Leading through change

Within OCS we’re doing several things to support our statisticians to improve their statistics. We’ve issued strategic priorities which sets out key aspects to focus on. These overarching priorities are:

Users – how value for the range of users should be central to everything we do;
Efficiency – how we should be streamlining what we do as far as possible;
Data, and how we maximise its use;
People – how we make the most of statisticians’ skills.

Specific improvement work will look different in different teams along these priorities. It is up to each team to plan and prioritise what to do.

Any strategy is worthless without the capability to drive it forward. What we’ve seen is that statisticians are very good technically and analytically but need support at the strategic and people level to develop their skills and confidence to make change happen.

We also want to create an environment where all staff can make decisions based on shared purpose and understanding, rather than relying solely on directives from more senior people in the organisation. As such we advocate intent-based leadership at all levels. This comes from the work of L. David Marquet’s Turn The Ship Around. In our context those at more junior grades often have a much better understanding of the data they work with and are the best people to make certain decisions. This move away from predominantly top-down approaches and moving decision making to where the information is will enable us to build a confident workforce that engage with and influence their current and future work.

Being ‘Fit for the Future’

This is where our leadership programme ‘Fit for the Future’ comes in. It is built on the central principles of advocating leadership at all levels and equipping our mid-level managers (at HStO and Grade 7 equivalent levels) with the skills to enact change.

We do this through a six day in-person interactive programme with about 16 statisticians in Scottish Government and other agencies in Scotland. It covers a range of themes including:

Introducing the intent-based leadership approach, and psychological safety to create the right conditions.
Tools and principles to work through improvement, such as Agile, road maps and techniques from design thinking.
Approaches and tactics from how others delivered change in the production of statistics.
Thinking introspectively about themselves as leaders, and overcoming personal barriers, such as imposter phenomenon and difficulties to influence, to build their confidence.

Throughout Fit for the Future we ask our participants to design a challenge for how they will lead through change in their day job. We pair each participant with a coach to help them refine their challenge and plan to deliver. Everyone presents their challenge at the end of the programme and gets feedback from the rest of the group. It’s like having 15 consultants to provide perspectives, insight and suggestions, and participants find this invaluable.

How’s it gone?

At time of writing we’ve completed four cohorts of the programme. We’ve had overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants and the rest of the analytical professions in Scottish Government. Participants praise the new ideas and ways of thinking the programme introduces. It gives tangible tools they can use straight away in their day job. Line managers tell us they see a longer-term strategic focus in their staff. The cohorts gel very quickly through the interactive nature of Fit for the Future, and this allows them to network and make new connections that lasts after the programme.

Fit for the Future is a key part of the wider cultural change we’ve trying to drive in the statistics profession in Scottish Government, dovetailing with the strategic priorities mentioned earlier. It’s early days but we can already see it playing a big role. Challenges are being taken forward in a range of areas, such as user engagement, reproducible analytical pipelines (RAP) and development of data sources. We see alumni adopting intent-based leadership approaches in their teams, empowering junior members of staff. Participants are strong advocates for Fit for the Future and our ethos, for instance we’re seeing second-generation programme applicants. Alumni are coaching new participants and even presenting on the programme.

You could say that Fit for the Future is truly making us fit for the future in analytical leadership capability!

If you want to find out more or have any questions, please get in touch with paul.matthews@gov.scot.

The Code, The Key and (for fans of 90s dance music) The Secret