2. System catalyst

How we will be a system catalyst

As well as being a regulatory body that makes formal judgements of compliance, we are also catalysts, providing insight to support, influence and guide. By raising systemic issues, monitoring and sharing best practice, and drawing attention to emerging innovations and emerging risks, we support improvement.

This system catalyst role emerges not through our direct regulatory judgements, but through our broader work to support the system – highlighting good practice as well as risks, and supporting a culture of openness and learning – and indeed vulnerability. We will continue to be level-headed: highlighting concrete changes that producers must make, and supporting producers to implement them. And we will recognise that openness and vulnerability only thrive where there is a sense of safety – that producers do not feel that by being open they will be subject to excessive regulatory criticism. Through our supportive yet challenging approach, we will catalyse an open culture across the statistical system.

We have two major pieces of work that provide this support: the Code of Practice, and our annual State of the System (SOSS) report. We would like to see greater adherence to the Code within the statistical system, and we also want to identify both risks and good practice through the SOSS.

We also undertake a wide range of formal and informal support activities, both in bilateral engagement with producers (for example, providing insight on the new Code) and for the whole system, for which we provide insight on emerging issues (for example, the dashboard guidance, data sharing and linkage or intelligent transparency).

The new National Statistician role, which is more explicitly focused on the statistics system, will be a significant partner for this aspect of our work. But we will also keep under review how ONS is fulfilling its role as the national statistical institute of the UK – providing data services, professional development and methodological support across the system.

Our scope in undertaking the role of catalyst is the UK’s system for the production of official statistics, which is made up of official statistics producers. While many of our insights are important and valuable for other forms of analytical output (forecasts, models), we do not formally provide assurance on the TQV of these outputs. We do, however, require government bodies to comply with the principles of intelligent transparency when publicly presenting the findings of any kind of analytical output. And we encourage voluntary adoption of the Code for other kinds of analysis – but without committing to any compliance-based reviews.

In short, we are catalysts, because:

• we use our role and insight to support, influence and guide
• we collaborate with producers across the system to influence systemic improvement.

Three areas of focus

Within this strategic theme there are three areas of focus:

1. Engage openly

Encourage the statistical system to engage openly. We would like to see more effective engagement between producers and users of statistics, as well as the wider public – this could be important to protect survey responses, and to understand what people are happy to have done with their data. One of the key lessons of the challenges faced by ONS has been its weakness and defensiveness in responding to external challenge. We will advocate to all producers the importance not just of user engagement on plans, but also an ongoing engagement as users react to, comment on and challenge statistical outputs.

2. Curiosity

Emphasise the importance of curiosity. There is a risk that the statistical system has a degree of rigidity – valuing the time series and the consistent production process over adaptation and responding to new issues. These issues often emerge when new data sources imply that the official statistics are telling an incomplete or misleading story. Through our system-wide guidance, our blogs and our informal networking, we will emphasise the importance of responding to these emerging issues with curiosity, and promote curiosity as an essential part of a quality culture, supporting continuous improvement. And we will explore the potential for producers to make greater use of non-traditional data sources (data that are neither commissioned surveys nor government administrative data).

3. Improve and innovate

Identify opportunities for the system to improve and innovate. Our cross-cutting work – for example, that on data sharing and linkage – supports innovative approaches and helps producers think through how to apply the principles of the Code in new contexts. As part of maintaining of focus quality, we will identity risks and provide guidance on how to deal with them. The risks to statistical production include trustworthiness risks (such as pressures on producers from resource constraints), quality risks (such as reduced representativeness of survey data, communication of quality and uncertainty), and value risks (how producers can communicate statistics appropriately in a crowded information landscape). Increasingly over the 3-year period of this strategy, producers will introduce AI approaches into statistical production and dissemination, and we will support them through guidance on how to do this in line with the Code.

Securing change

We secure change by:

• monitoring and sharing good practice
• identifying and communicating systemic risks and opportunities across the statistical system
• promoting innovation and responsiveness through guidance, blogs and convening activities
• encouraging open engagement between producers, users and the public to strengthen relevance
• supporting innovation and adoption of new tools and methods, including AI, through practical guidance
• championing curiosity and adaptability as core elements of a quality culture

Commitments

We will:

• publish an annual State of the Statistical System report with actionable insights and recommendations for the National Statistician
• disseminate and embed the updated Code of Practice across the system
• develop targeted guidance on emerging issues (such as dashboards, AI, public engagement)
• monitor the uptake of guidance and track system-wide improvements