Dear Sioned,
We have completed our assessment of the statistics on higher education, further education, apprenticeships and adult community learning, produced by Medr:
- Students in higher education
- Welsh language in higher education
- Further education, work-based learning and community learning
- Learner outcome measures for apprenticeships and adult community learning
- Consistent performance measures for post-16 learning: Achievement
- Apprenticeships learning programmes started
I am grateful for the positive contribution and engagement from your teams throughout the assessment.
We found that Medr has established a strong foundation as a new official statistics producer. We identified many areas of good practice, including collaborative engagement with users, constructive relationships with all data providers, clear quality information, and insightful statistics.
We have identified seven requirements to strengthen the statistics. These focus on publishing required statistical policies and statements, expanding quality information, improving the quality of data on Welsh speaking ability of students in higher education, being more transparent about methods where sex and gender identity data are combined, and prioritising website developments.
We judge that the statistics can be designated as accredited official statistics once we have confirmed that the requirements set out in our report have been met. Addressing the requirements will demonstrate that the statistics on higher education, further education, apprenticeships and adult community learning meet the Code of Practice for Statistics’ standards of trustworthiness, quality and value.
We have agreed that Medr should meet these requirements by March 2027 and keep us updated on progress.
I am copying this letter to Jon Ackland, Head of Further Education, Apprenticeship and Adult Learning Statistics; and Hannah Falvey, Head of Higher Education Statistics.
Yours sincerely,
Ed Humpherson
Director General for OSR