This report draws together the findings from OSR’s regulatory work in financial year 21/22 to provide a deeper insight into the state of the UK’s statistical system.
Intelligent transparency being the default for all statistics and data
Statisticians feeling confident and supported to ensure statistics are equally accessible to all and explained to aid understanding and prevent misinterpretation.
Data, and explanations of them, published where a user can easily find them
Development plans published as standard to enable all users to understand upcoming changes to statistics and help drive priorities for development.
Departments empowering statisticians to communicate with users, challenge the inappropriate use of statistics and support understanding of statistics.
Producers being proactive in considering how their statistics might be misquoted or misused and including relevant information alongside the statistics to mitigate this risk.
Departments ensuring that Heads of Profession have the skilled and resourced teams that they need to deliver statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics.
Conversations with a wide range of users to identify where statistics can be ceased or reduced in frequency or detail to save resource if appropriate.
Use of better infrastructure, processes and systems to ensure the efficient and sustainable delivery of statistics.
Quality
Producers being proactive in identifying new and innovative data sources that can improve the quality of statistics and better meet user needs.
Producers automating more of their statistical productions using Reproducible Analytical Pipelines, in order to enhance the trustworthiness, quality and value of statistics.
Wider use of technology, such as computer aided classification, to enhance the quality of statistics
Greater use of other data sources, and linked data, to improve data accuracy and add extra value to outputs.
Statisticians working with others who can help ensure the quality of statistics.
Improved communication of the uncertainty within statistics.
Consideration of how uncertainty is communicated, using language that matches the complexity of the statistics presented in order to make products as accessible as possible
Value
Continued timely data on the topics that matter most
Proactive horizon scanning for potential data gaps
Producers continuing to use innovative ways to make statistics more accessible to deliver insight to a wider range of users.
When developing dashboards and other data tools, producers to consider the questions they seek to answer, and the audience, to ensure that they provide insight.
A continued move to a culture within government of a willingness to share data and overcome barriers
Collaboration throughout the whole process to ensure definitions and methodology are consistent
Expansion of the Integrated Data Service to provide value for a range of stakeholders
Greater collaboration between statistics producers and wider stakeholders to enable statistics to better meet user needs.
Improvements in the inclusivity of statistics through collaboration both within the system and more broadly.
