Winners announced for the Statistical Excellence in Trustworthiness, Quality and Value Award 2021

Today, we are proud to announce the winners of the second Award for Statistical Excellence in Trustworthiness, Quality and Value, awarded in partnership with the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and Civil Service World.

This award recognises excellence in the voluntary application of the ‘pillars’ of Trustworthiness, Quality and Value (TQV) that stand at the heart of our Code of Practice for Statistics. The standard and variety of entries for the award was amazing, making the judging extremely difficult. However, we identified one outstanding winner and highly commended runner-up.

The winning organisation is:

BEIS Greenhouse Gas Conversion Factors for Company Reporting: The emission conversion factors, published annually by the Greenhouse Gas Inventory team in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), allow users to convert activity data into greenhouse gas emissions. This resource is used by organisations to calculate their greenhouse gas emissions from activity data, and therefore comply with Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting (SECR) regulations and other environmental reporting needs and requirements. As well as being the main tool to support companies to report emissions in the UK, the factors are a source for policy development and statistical publications across the UK government departments and are internationally regarded as a high-quality resource.

This project was a fantastic collaboration that was radical, innovative and created a valuable tool to help government and businesses calculate their carbon emissions from use of fuel, water and waste generation. This is an outstanding example of how to apply the Code to the statistics and the conversion factors themselves. The creation of this tool and the involvement of the expert steering group has helped develop something highly important, to tackle the complex issue of how to calculate emissions and consider environmental impact. Read the full case study.

Highly commended is:

NHS Test and Trace weekly Statistics Publication: The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) publishes weekly statistics on NHS Test and Trace (England), across all 4 testing pillars. The purpose of the publication is to provide a weekly update on the implementation and performance of NHS Test and Trace in England. The publication was  launched in June 2020, and two weeks after the programme started, voluntarily applied the Code of Practice for  Statistics. From February 2021, the team has also published additional data alongside the core Test and Trace metrics. This data focuses on rapid asymptomatic testing in England.

This entry used voluntary application (VA) exceptionally well, at a time when these statistics were required to respond to public need and understanding of the pandemic. The team were also working under intense pressure and scrutiny – but managed to add value, transparency and consistency to this release. This is an excellent example of how VA can be used to create improvements and clarity for users. Read the full case study.

Baroness Onora O’Neill of Bengarve, whose ‘Trustworthiness’ work inspired this award said:

“This award once again provides an opportunity for those who have produced outstanding statistics projects to show  how they have used the Code to make a public commitment to high quality and trustworthiness. I am delighted to see how both of these very important projects have applied the principles to enhance public value for their users.”

Ed Humpherson, Director General for Regulation and lead judge commented:

“We have enjoyed another year of fantastic entries for this award, and have identified a very worthy winner and a highly commended entry as our outstanding finalists. Once again we can see how flexible the Code of Practice is and how it supports public confidence in statistics and data.”

Stian Westlake, Chief Executive of the Royal Statistical Society, said:

“This year’s winners have demonstrated a real commitment to trustworthiness, quality and value that stand at the heart of the Code of Practice for Statistics. The teams are to be congratulated for their collaborative, fast-thinking and imaginative approaches and the dedication they have shown to the robust use of statistics to aid better decision-making.”

Editors Notes

‘Voluntary application’ was introduced in 2018 by OSR alongside the publication of its refreshed Code of Practice for Statistics. This is where an organisation commits to TQV in how it produces, and releases information not classified as official statistics. Voluntary Application is available for organisations outside Government, and also for Government organisations publishing other types of information like research and open data.
The TQV Award (formerly the Voluntary Application Award), will happen again in 2022, and information on how to apply will be available early in the New Year. Entrants will need to demonstrate how they meet each of the following criteria:

A stated commitment to applying TQV in producing and sharing their information

Examples of how TQV have been applied to innovate or improve their information or processes
A demonstration of how public value has been enhanced by their application of the pillars

Judged by an expert judging panel, the winner and runners-up will be announced as part of the RSS’s annual Statistical Excellence Awards.

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) is the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority. We provide independent regulation of all official statistics produced in the UK assessed against the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Code of Practice for Statistics applies to everyone in an organisation producing official statistics, including senior leaders, policy professionals, communications staff and other analysts. Official statistics should be compiled to the highest standards of quality to ensure decision-making is based on sound evidence.
Voluntary application of the Code is for any producer of data, statistics and analysis which are not official statistics, whether inside government or beyond, to help them produce analytical outputs that are high quality, useful for supporting decisions, and well respected. For more information about the Code of Practice, a list of the organisations that have already made a public commitment to VA and how it can be applied please visit the online Code
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS), founded in 1834, is one of the world’s most distinguished and renowned statistical societies. It is a learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics, data and evidence for the public good. Today the RSS has around 10,000 members around the world.

For more on Voluntary Application or the Office for Statistics Regulation, please email suzanne.halls@statistics.gov.uk;