Regulation blog

Ed Humpherson, the Director General for Regulation, team members at the Office for Statistics Regulation and other ad-hoc guest authors present think pieces on how the different areas of the statistical system can affect and benefit the public.

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  • Which COVID-19 deaths figures should I be looking at?

    22 January 2021

    Every day we see figures for number of COVID-19 deaths in the UK quoted in the media, but what do these mean, and which figures should we pay most attention…

  • OSR in 2021

    15 January 2021

    2020 was a year in which statistics and data were at the centre of public life. We became a nation of armchair epidemiologists. There’s no sign that this will change…

  • Ground truth

    4 January 2021

    Do statistics provide a sort of ground truth, anchoring our perceptions of the world? Last year I was invited to participate in a conference on digital innovation in mental health,…

  • The people behind the Office for Statistics Regulation in 2020

    18 December 2020

    This year I’ve written 9 blogs, ranging from an exploration of data gaps to a celebration of the armchair epidemiologists. I was thinking of making it to double figures, setting…

  • Being a placement student at OSR in 2020

    16 December 2020

    Effie Roberts and Isabel Ralphs joined our team as placement students in September this year. Difficult as this year has been, both of them have used the challenges to their…

  • OSR, your critical friend: working with us for the first time

    20 November 2020

    In March 2020, the NHS Business Service Authority (NHSBSA) contacted us to assess its Prescription Cost Analysis: England statistics. NHSBSA is a new official statistics producer, with a change in…

  • Why trust and transparency are vital in a pandemic

    5 November 2020

    During the coronavirus pandemic we have seen statistics and data take an increasingly prominent role in press conferences, media interviews and statements. Governments across the UK have used data to…

  • How to solve a puzzle like productivity

    3 November 2020

    This is a guest blog from Andy Haldane and Gavin Wallis, Industrial Strategy Council   There’s a reason that the UK’s weak productivity performance since the financial crisis is still…

  • Casework: How you help us champion statistics that serve the public good

    29 October 2020

    Today we published the UK Statistics Authority’s Annual Review of Casework 2019/20. In the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) we champion production and use of statistics that serve the public…

  • Data gaps: no need to be daunted

    26 October 2020

    We are, apparently, living in a world awash with data. Data are available in ever greater quantity and with ever greater frequency. Yet alongside this abundance, there is a realisation…

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