Announcing the Chair of the inaugural UK Statistics Assembly

Sir Robert Chote, Chair, UK Statistics Authority, and Dr Sarah Cumbers, Chief Executive of the Royal Statistical Society

 

The UK Statistics Authority and the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) are delighted to be convening the first ever UK Statistics Assembly in London on Wednesday 22 January 2025. This will be an opportunity for users and producers to meet and discuss future priorities for the UK statistical system. Your input is key.

Why the Assembly matters

Every day, official statistics and data provide vital insights that help citizens, businesses, policymakers and civil society plan for the future, make decisions and understand our society and economy better. Many official statistics are produced by the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s national statistical institute, but the majority come from a wide range of other government departments and public bodies.

Across Government, public bodies are preparing to make their submissions ahead of the Spending Review next spring that will set out public expenditure plans through to 2027/28 and the Authority is also preparing to refresh our five-year strategy. The Assembly is a chance to bring together a broad range of participants for a day to discuss user needs, data gaps and the challenges and opportunities confronting the system, which will feed into these preparations.

This is a great opportunity to inform producers’ workplans for the coming years, as well as to discuss how the official system can best engage with the broader statistical ecosystem in a way that contributes to the public good.

A collaborative process

The creation of the Assembly follows a recommendation from the recent independent review of the UK Statistics Authority led by Professor Denise Lievesley. As the review pointed out, there is no off-the-shelf template for an event of this sort and so we are building and learning as we go, and the first iteration will be something of an experiment.

The RSS and the Authority are delighted to be collaborating on this exciting enterprise. To ensure a diverse and inclusive event, we have established an advisory group that has wide representation, including from UK Research and Innovation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Academy of Social Sciences, local government and each of the governments of the UK. We are deeply grateful for their insights, ideas and challenges in shaping the Assembly’s design.

We are also delighted to announce that the Assembly in January will be chaired by Professor Cathie Sudlow OBE of the University of Edinburgh. Cathie’s work bringing together different sources of data to tackle health problems at a population level typifies the potential for data to be used rigorously and imaginatively to increase understanding and improve people’s lives. The Sudlow Review, published earlier this month, made a number of recommendations for improving the health data landscape in the UK.

Your views will shape the discussion

Your input is vital to ensure that the Assembly delivers to its full potential and identifies some key initiatives that the system can take forward. We need the involvement of central, devolved and local government, the private sector, academia and charities, across every sector and part of the UK. We have already made a public call for contributions and suggestions for topics of discussion, which closed earlier this month. The comments collected will now be used to construct an agenda which reflects your priorities and allows a wide range of perspectives and experiences.

But it is not too late to get involved. We encourage you to register to attend the Assembly event in January and share your views. Please do follow us on social media and view our websites to receive the latest updates in the run-up to the Assembly.

In setting the agenda and welcoming contributions, we of course have to recognise that financial resources within the official statistical system remain limited and that work programmes at the broad level have to be agreed within each body and, in the Civil Service, with HM Treasury as part of the Spending Review process. To make the most of this opportunity, we must focus on realistic, actionable priorities. Addressing prioritisation and trade-offs, in both the long and the short term, is fundamental to the purpose of the Assembly and will be embedded into the discussions.

What will happen after the Assembly

The Assembly event is our focal point for discussion and prioritisation, but it should be seen as part of an ongoing conversation that needs to become broader still rather than a final word. Insights gathered from the Assembly itself will be compiled in conjunction with the National Statistician’s Expert User Advisory Committee into a report for the UK Statistics Authority Board. This report will help inform both immediate and longer-term planning for official statistics in the UK, as well as shape the Authority’s upcoming five-year strategy. And it may also open new avenues where non-official statistics can complement official data for the public good.

Together, let’s shape a future statistics landscape that drives the public good for everyone in the UK.