Our maturity as a regulator

Each year, in our annual report we draw out a theme where we have gained particular insight about our performance and impact over the year. In 2020/21 we naturally focused on our role in the pandemic. This year, we reflect on how we have matured as a regulator and how that has helped us widen our reach and influence and effect change.

We have grown in size, capability and profile and all have helped us deliver positive outcomes from our work, but fundamental to our increasing maturity is a more strategic approach to regulation. We have widened our reach beyond our regulatory tools and single sets of recommendations, learning from – and building on – these outputs and acting on the systemic issues arising to influence across the statistical system.

Analytical Leadership

In early 2021 we published a report setting out the findings from our review looking at how statistical leadership could be strengthened across government. Rather than representing a final output, this report acts as a starting point for further engagement. Over the last year we have engaged through blogs and events on topics such as ‘Empowering statistical leaders’.

The principles which we apply to statistics are valuable more widely, and we are now taking forward our previous work on statistical leadership under a broader ‘analytical leadership’ theme. A new resource on our website brings together our range of continuing work and offers thought leadership to support the community.

Intelligent Transparency

Our work on transparency in communicating statistics originated from issues arising in multiple pieces of casework. We took this further by building relationships with producers across government, providing first informal and then formal published guidance which we can now use to support our position. We continue to build our evidence base, highlighting good examples and understanding more about barriers.

We intervene on specific cases where we deem it necessary: for example, in December 2021 our Director General wrote to thank the Head of Profession for Statistics at UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) for how their team had responded to a lack of transparency around data to support a statement on Covid-19 made by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in the House of Commons. We have continued to support the UKHSA Head of Profession as they implement new guidance for their organisation. We are also working with external organisations (for example, a guest blog by Will Moy from Full Fact) and officials in governments (for example, a letter from the Head of UK Civil Service to Permanent Secretaries) to support solutions and make the case for intelligent transparency. The topic was also the first in our new series of events for analysts in government.

Use of statistical models

This year we published guidance on the use of statistical models following the publication of our review of the exam results algorithm in 2020. We then tested our thinking on QCovid® – a different sort of algorithm – and published our findings. This approach has not only improved our understanding but enabled us to build good relationships with key stakeholders in the data science community.

An internal exploration of how we deliver impact as a regulator has also reinforced that it is often our ‘softer’ capabilities that allow us to consolidate our impact and widen our reach. Some highlights in 2021/22 include:

• We have published several guest blogs, including one on how statisticians can help journalists to help serve the public good (April 2021)
• Our report on lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of strong leadership and transparency (October 2021)
• Our Director General for Regulation discussed algorithmic trust and challenges for regulators at the Validate AI 2021 conference (December 2021)
• We have had a series of successful events – for the government analytical function and for the wider public – including an event on data surrounding children and young people called Visibility, Vulnerability and Voice. And we have increased subscribers to our newsletter to over 4000 (by end of March 2022)
• Our Director General has increasingly been called upon to give evidence to Parliament including to: Science and Technology Committee on the use of statistics during the pandemic; Work and Pensions Committee inquiry on children in poverty; Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry on Coronavirus Act 2020: two years on; Scottish Parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee inquiry on Data and Digital Services in Health and Social Care Scotland; and opening events for Evidence Week in Westminster and Holyrood
• To strengthen our capability, we have brought in a new Insight and Evaluation Manager this year. We have a range of current Insight projects around transparency, uncertainty, and the use of statistics in evaluation.

We have taken the time to focus on our people within OSR, improving our internal capability and ensuring the continued wellbeing of our colleagues. We have established the OSR Development Programme where two candidates are selected every six months to receive specific support towards their goals and career progression aims. We are proud to have maintained our excellent People Survey results, scoring 77% on the Employee Engagement Index compared to the Civil Service average of 66%. Other strengths were understanding our Organisational Objectives and How My Work Contributes (94%); Working as a Team to improve our service (92%); and Inclusion and Respect (90%).