List of requirements

Based on the findings of this review, we have identified seven requirements that Medr must fulfil for the statistics to become accredited official statistics (called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007).

We expect Medr to meet these requirements by March 2027.

Requirement 1: To be transparent about its approach to collecting data and producing and developing statistics, Medr should publish the following policies and statements by September 2026:

a) Release practice policy

b) Data management approach

c) Quality management approach

d) Annual statistical work programme

e) Public involvement and engagement strategy

Requirement 2: To ensure public confidence in the Welsh language in higher education statistics, Medr should continue to work with higher education providers to improve data quality by March 2027.

Requirement 3: To assure users about the quality of the statistics on Welsh language in higher education, Medr should describe its quality assurance arrangements for the statistics by March 2027.

Requirement 4: To help users understand all aspects of the quality of statistics based on Lifelong Learning Wales Record (LLWR), Medr should expand its quality and methods information to cover the end-to-end quality assurance process and the methods for producing the statistics on consistent performance measures for post-16 learning and apprenticeships learning programmes started by March 2027.

Requirement 5: To assure users about the quality of the post-16 data collection, Medr should publish a quality summary that covers all aspects of quality, including quality assurance arrangements by March 2027.

Requirement 6: To enhance transparency about methods and support user interpretation of differences in sex and gender identity data in the statistics on consistent performance measures for post-16 learning, Medr should publish information about how it combines gender identity data from the Lifelong Learning Wales Record (LLWR) and sex data from the post-16 data collection and provide clear guidance for users by June 2026.

Requirement 7: To ensure users can access previous releases of the statistics, Medr should prioritise developing statistics landing pages by March 2027.