Why we did this review
Understanding how statistics are used and what users and other stakeholders need is critical to ensuring that statistics remain relevant and provide insight. To achieve this, statistics producers must engage with users.
To explore this aspect of statistics production, we carried out a review of user engagement in the Defra Group. By the Defra group we mean the Core Department and Executive Agencies, Forestry Commission and those Defra Arm’s Length bodies that are designated as producers of official statistics: Environment Agency, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Marine Management Organisation and Natural England.
This is our first departmental review of user engagement and the Defra Group made an ideal candidate for such a review. It has a large and broad portfolio of official statistics and National Statistics, with a varied public profile, public interest and impact and is therefore likely to require different approaches to engaging with users.
We focused our review on a set of 10 National Statistics and official statistics which reflect the diversity of the Defra Group statistics portfolio (see report Annex B). They cover a range of topics, users and uses, and represent the Defra core department as well as Arm’s Length Bodies.
What we hope to achieve
Through this review we aim to develop a better understanding of the range of approaches to user engagement currently adopted within the Defra Group, and to identify the key features of effective and impactful user engagement. We hope this will support the Defra Group in enhancing its user engagement and provide broader learning for other statistics producers.
Related links:
Correspondence: Ken Roy to Ed Humpherson: User engagement in the Defra group
Correspondence: Ed Humpherson to Ken Roy: User engagement in the Defra Group
Blog: What we have learned from the Defra Group about user engagement