Compliance review of Building Safety Remediation: monthly data release

Overview

At the time of this review being published, the Building Safety Remediation data releases are published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) as research and analysis, and the statistics are labelled as management information. Management information is the aggregation and summary of operational data as statistics, to inform business decisions.

These statistics present monthly information about the remediation progress of residential buildings over 11 metres with unsafe cladding in England. MHCLG uses this information to assess progress in remediating buildings that are unlikely to comply with building regulations and to inform potential policy responses.

This review aims to make recommendations for improvements to MHCLG’s Building Safety Remediation statistics. OSR has published guidance on the differences between management information and official statistics. Management information can fill a gap by providing statistics on progress towards a specific policy. While statistics published as management information do not need to follow the Code of Practice for Statistics, producers are encouraged to voluntarily adopt the Code. As with official statistics, management information publications should note limitations and quality concerns to enable their appropriate use.

Why we did this review

MHCLG’s Building Safety Remediation statistics have been published monthly since December 2017. The statistics report on progress towards the remediation of fire safety issues in the wake of the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, by tracking the progress of several building remediation schemes. The statistics team currently applies the Code of Practice for Statistics on a voluntary basis and won the first award for voluntary application (VA) for adherence to the Code in 2020.

Given the public interest in these statistics, we have reviewed this management information to help the statistical team identify opportunities to further improve its adherence to the Code. We engaged with the statistics team as part of this review process. During the review period, the statistics underwent significant developments, including incorporating data from newly launched remediation schemes. Our findings reflect these developments and highlight areas that the team is well placed to take forward.

Findings

We found that these statistics are produced to a high standard and comply with nearly all aspects of the Code of Practice.

The main area of the Code where these statistics do not comply relates to pre-release access, as the statistics in their final form are visible to MHCLG staff outside of the statistical team prior to their release, and beyond the 24-hour pre-release access window. Relatedly, the VA compliance statement needs to be updated to accurately reflect the full range of Code areas that are followed and to clarify which parts are not.

MHCLG has been effectively improving the presentation and the content of these statistics. This includes expanding the statistics to reflect new building safety schemes that have been launched. The recent improvements made to the presentation of the statistics should aid users’ understanding of building safety remediation progress for a variety of uses, including enhancing public debate around the extent of building safety issues and holding the government to account.

The accompanying Power BI dashboard provides a comprehensive suite of breakdowns with relevant caveats, and is a good example of how government statistics can be represented in this format.

The technical notes accompanying the statistics provide useful information on the methods, data collection and quality assurance behind each remediation scheme. Flowcharts are usefully included to visually demonstrate the quality assurance process and data journey of the statistics.

Uncertainty is partially communicated in the technical notes. However, more information could be provided on the inherent uncertainty for each methodology. Information on the extent of any uncertainty could also be communicated in the statistical bulletin where relevant. Furthermore, there is no specific information on any revisions or corrections that are made to the statistics; including this would further help users understand the extent of any uncertainty.

Our judgement

These statistics serve as a good example of how statistics producers can utilise the Code of Practice for Statistics to ensure published management information better serves the public good. Through applying the Code, the team at MHCLG has created a statistics release that transparently informs the public of progress in a policy area of high public interest in an accessible and interpretable way. The team should continue to strengthen its application of the Code and look to continually improve these statistics, including through incorporating new fire safety statistics where appropriate.

We have identified three main areas for MHCLG to take forward to further strengthen the trustworthiness, quality and value of these statistics, in line with the Code:

The statistics publication is accompanied by a general MHCLG user engagement policy. Given the topical nature of these statistics, it would be useful for users to know how the team engages externally and what the team’s engagement plans are for these statistics. We encourage the team to be more transparent about its approach to engaging with users and to consider how it might extend its user engagement activities. Drawing on user feedback to inform further improvements to the statistics would add value for users.
The team should update its voluntary adoption compliance statement to reflect the current state of the statistics. Clearly indicating which parts of the Code are not followed, and the reasons why, would help users to better understand the extent to which the statistics are produced in line with the Code.
The statistics could be further improved by including more information on the extent of any uncertainty in the main body of the bulletin. The team could also conduct a new review of the quality of the administrative source data to better understand and communicate the inherent uncertainty in each remediation scheme’s data. Including a dedicated revisions policy and communicating the extent of any revisions made in the bulletin would further aid users’ understanding on the extent of any uncertainty in the statistics.

Next steps

We would like to see the team in MHCLG continue to improve these statistics for users. This could include enhancing the value of the statistics by adding new data and insight where relevant; incorporating other fire safety statistics into future releases; and implementing more principles of the Code of Practice for Statistics. We will continue to engage with the statistical team in MHCLG on these statistics to help the team meet the recommendations set out in this review.

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