Approach to the Review

OSR’s work is underpinned by the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The Code sets the standards that producers of official statistics should commit to. The Code benefits all of us, as users and citizens. Compliance with the Code gives users confidence that published government statistics have public value, are high quality and are produced by people and organisations that are trustworthy.

Trustworthiness is a product of the people, systems and processes within organisations that enable and support the production of statistics and data. Trustworthiness comes from the organisation that produces statistics and data being well led, well managed and open, and the people who work there being impartial and skilled in what they do.

Quality means that statistics fit their intended uses, are based on appropriate data and methods and are not materially misleading. Quality requires skilled professional judgement about collecting, preparing, analysing and publishing statistics and data in ways that meet the needs of people who want to use the statistics.

Value means that the statistics and data are useful, easy to access, remain relevant and support understanding of important issues. Value includes improving existing statistics and creating new ones through discussion and collaboration with stakeholders, and being responsible and efficient in the collection, sharing and use of statistical information.

We began this review with a significant base of evidence from our regulatory work on economic statistics, including our Spotlight on Quality programme. We used this evidence and some exploratory conversations with ONS and stakeholders to set out a scope for the review, and also framed a series of questions in our call for evidence.

To maximise the impact of our review and recommendations, we focused on what we have judged to be the most important areas for review, drawing on the principal sources of evidence set out below. In making this judgement, we have sought to reflect the balance of evidence and considered the scale of the economic and social consequences of the decisions which rest on the economic statistics in question.

As this review has been shaped in part through engagement with stakeholders and reflects their current concerns, we have not aimed to assess in detail progress against each recommendation in the Bean review. Rather, we have focused on the issues which have been of most importance to stakeholders.

The review has drawn on intelligence from multiple sources and the conclusions presented in this review are triangulated from the principal sources set out below and presented in separate sections of the report. In addition, we have reviewed key ONS-published strategies and reports.

First, we have reviewed previous OSR assessments and identified common and important findings. In line with the objectives of a systemic review, we have focused on high-level and cross-cutting issues and sought to learn from, but avoid duplicating, other OSR activities, particularly in respect of engagement with ONS on the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS). A full list of the 26 assessments we have conducted since 2015.

Second, we have engaged extensively with key stakeholders and users including:

• HM Treasury, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility
• other government departments, particularly the devolved administrations
• think-tanks and research organisations
• academic users and other researchers
• other informed and engaged bodies and individuals, such as the Royal Statistical society and the Better Statistics campaign
• the Statistics Assembly held in January (attended by around 800 people) and subsequent report

A full list of those we engaged with is included in Annex 2.

Third, we have sought views from, and tested emerging findings with, a wide range of ONS staff. This engagement has taken the form of roundtable sessions with staff at different levels within ONS, and bilateral discussions on specific issues. In total, we gathered evidence from around 40 ONS staff, largely based in its economic statistics division.

Fourth, at our request, ONS provided additional financial information to support our understanding of the funding of economic statistics and the associated data collection.

Our engagement with stakeholders and staff in ONS has been undertaken with the understanding that any views expressed would not be attributed to individuals.

Although this review has focused on identifying high-level and cross-cutting improvements that address specific issues raised by stakeholders, it is important to emphasise that stakeholders who expressed concerns also acknowledged a generally high level of confidence in the trustworthiness, quality and value of many ONS outputs. They also recognised that these outputs have improved in many aspects over time.