How OSR will be supporting the statistics system

We recognise that it continues to be a challenging time for statistics producers and the system is responding well. We want to support producers to continue to ensure, and improve, the trustworthiness, quality and value of statistics for the public good. As set out in our business plan our focus over the next year will be to prioritise projects which improve public understanding of matters of greatest public interest, promote data sharing and linkage in a secure manner and widen our reach and influence. These priorities will help us support the system to make the improvements set out in this report. Specific areas of work include:

Transparency:

We will continue to champion improvements to the intelligent transparency of statistics and data. As part of widening our reach we will consolidate our position to support any public use of data and analysis by UK governments with a focus on system-wide change.

Data linkage:

Data sharing and data linkage is a priority for us. We plan to engage with key stakeholders involved in data sharing and linkage to gather examples of good practice as well as understand the barriers. This will be used to champion successes, support positive change and provide opportunities for learning to be shared.

Communicating uncertainty:

We are planning to publish a report on communicating uncertainty later this year and will work with others in this area, such as the Winton Centre and ONS Data Quality Hub, to provide further support and guidance to producers.

Analytical leadership:

We believe that effective analytical leadership ensures that the right data and analyses are available, and that analysts are skilled and resourced to answer society’s most important questions. Our planned work on Analytical leadership will show how the TQV (Trustworthiness, Quality and Value) framework can be relevant and helpful to everyone working with data and analysis in government. The framework supports confidence in analysis and decisions informed by analysis. By drawing on TQV, government analysis can more fully serve the wider public good.

In addition, we will identify, and champion, examples of where innovation and collaboration have enabled statisticians to be responsive to the public’s needs and produce clear and insightful statistics through our regulatory work programme of assessments, compliance checks and systemic reviews. We will also encourage improvements in these areas where they are needed.