Today, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) published their report on ‘Unlocking the value of data through onward sharing’. As Director of a partnership that exists to do just that, I wholeheartedly welcome this new guidance.
This month the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published a new tool, aiming to bring together health statistics from across government in one place. We welcome this tool to improve user access to vital information on health.
The Office of Statistics Regulation (OSR) can designate statistics as ‘National Statistics’, but what does this actually mean? We need to look back to understand the future of statistic designations.
Language is tricky. And especially adjectives. We need to be careful that in bringing statistics to life, we don’t choose words that could mislead or imply there’s something in the statistics that isn’t really there.
In a recent seminar we asked members of the Government Statistical Service for three words they would use to describe Government Statistics. Among the top words we got back were ‘trustworthy’, ‘quality’ and ‘informative’.
We introduced a scheme in 2018 alongside the publication of the Code of Practice that we call ‘voluntary application’. It is where an organisation releasing non-official data elects to hold themselves to the three pillars of the Code of Practice.
On paper, linking data sets might sound simple but, in practice, it is often difficult. This is why I’m so excited about the recent work we’ve seen from the Ministry of Justice.
“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking”. Our recent review of HMRC statistics highlights the importance of quality in helping to ensure public trust in official statistics.
Data and policy are a powerful mix, offering huge benefits to society in terms of defining, understanding and solving problems. But amidst this wave of techno-optimism, there is caution.
During the coronavirus pandemic a key question has been: How many people have died because of COVID-19? This seemingly straightforward question is surprisingly difficult to answer.