Background
The Office for Statistics Regulation views statistics as an essential public asset; innovation in
statistics is vital to secure the public value of statistics and can add real value for users.
Systemic reviews help us explore issues of public value and identify developments that the
statistics system may need to make.
What we plan to do and why
This review will focus on the Children, Education, and Skills (CES) area which includes statistics
on various topics – for example teachers and lecturers, learners, and those not in education,
employment or training – and covers all stages of education from early years to university and
beyond.
Through this review, we will explore innovations and improvements being made to CES
statistics and in doing so champion and celebrate this important work. In addition we want to be
able to understand user needs when it comes to CES statistics and share this with producers to
help inform priorities in their development plans for the future.
How we will do this
The CES statistics area is wide and covers many different statistics outputs produced across
the UK. To get a broad understanding of the range of innovations being undertaken we will ask
producers to tell us about their work through a questionnaire. Based on the outcomes of this we
will review the scope of the review and possibly focus on activity in a particular area of the
statistics.
We then plan to delve more deeply to understand the benefits realised from improvements and
any barriers faced by producers. At this point we will also speak with researchers, academics,
policy, and other user groups to hear what they think have been valuable innovations in CES
statistics and what they would like to see in the future.
Timings
Producer Questionnaire, September/October 2017
Undertake producer and user interviews, October – December 2017
Publish a short report containing the review findings, Spring 2018.
Contact for more information on the CES systemic review:
Marie McGhee marie.mcghee@statistics.gov.uk
Louisa McCutcheon louisa.mccutcheon@statistics.gov.uk