The winners of the Royal Statistical Society’s ‘Campion Award for Excellence in Official Statistics’, have been announced today. Awarded in partnership the UK Statistics Authority and Civil Service World, the award celebrates good practice in UK official statistics.
Named in honour of the late Sir Harry Campion, (the first director of the Central Statistical Office,) the aim of the award is to recognise outstanding innovations or developments that improve service to users.
The 2020 Award Winner is…
The Ofsted inspection data summary report (IDSR): data driven insight for inspectors – Ofsted Schools Pre-inspection Data and Insight team – Abbie Self, Rebecca Driffield, Muredach Diamond, Jeremy Honeywill, Beth Munns and Steve Ball
The IDSR is a bespoke report produced for every school in England which provides statistically driven insights to help guide conversations on inspection. The judging panel found the report, which was redeveloped in 2019, to be a worthy winner of this year’s Campion award. They were particularly impressed by the improvement of methods, better use of data and the substantial reduction in costs that were demonstrated in this entry.
Abbie Self, Head of Schools and Regions, Data and Insight at Ofsted, said:
“We’re thrilled to have won such a coveted award. Redeveloping the service to ensure inspectors were equipped with data driven insights to support a new inspection framework and using new technology was a huge achievement for us. To receive the Campion Award in recognition of our efforts really is the icing on the cake.”
The ONS Data Science Campus Faster Indicators Team were awarded a ‘Highly Commended’ award for their work on ‘Faster indicators of UK economic activity’ and a Special Commendation was awarded to the ONS Digital Content Team for ‘improving the impact of ONS analysis for all users’.
Sir David Norgrove, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, commenting on the announcement, said:
“Warm congratulations to Ofsted on receiving the 2020 Campion Award. Both the winners and runners up this year have created remarkable examples of the best of the work taking place across the UK’s official statistics system, particularly as we begin to take advantage of new sources of data, with existing sources, to answer society’s most important questions. Ofsted’s work on the new inspection report is a pioneering use of existing pupil-level data, allowing school inspectors to focus on outcomes for pupils in a way not previously possible. The faster economic indicators from the ONS have made creative use of new data sources, giving a timeliness to our view of the economy which will be invaluable to policymakers in the winter ahead.”
Dev Virdee MBE, chair of the award judging panel, said:
“The standard of nominations this year was very high and difficult to shortlist, and all nominees are to be commended for their work. While these awards are for work done during 2019, so they don’t reflect the enormous contribution of government statisticians in dealing with the Covid-19 crisis, they do shine a light on the important role that those in official statistics play. Not only in informing policy decisions and the public, but also in improving societal outcomes as a result. This year’s winners are excellent examples of this, and I congratulate them on their fantastic work.”
For the full story and more information on all of the winners, please visit the RSS website.