The Royal Statistical Society has announced the recipients of the 2025 Campion Award for Excellence in Official Statistics, awarded in partnership with the UK Statistics Authority and Civil Service World.
The award celebrates good practice in UK official statistics, recognising outstanding innovations, developments and challenges faced by government statisticians in providing both “business as usual” outputs and the data needed to better understand emerging societal issues.
Dev Virdee, chair of the Campion Award committee, said:
“This year’s winning and highly commended entries show how official statistics can deliver real-world impact. These projects reflect the innovation and public value at the heart of this award – congratulations to the teams involved.”
Sir Robert Chote, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, said:
“Official statistics are not just important for answering the big policy questions of the day but also the many more that people encounter in their daily lives. A new hyperlocal view of where childcare is available, which the Ofsted Early Years team has produced, will empower families and shape the lives of their children for years to come.
“Meanwhile the ONS’s work on payment flows, marshalling huge amounts of financial data, will help businesses large and small understand each other better and invest to prepare for the economic and technological changes of the future.
“In a challenging period for the official statistical system, we still have much to be proud of and grateful for. I congratulate the winners and commended entries, who have shown that they are standard-bearers for excellence in official statistics.”
Winner:
Understanding barriers for working parents: where are childcare deserts and oases?
Early Years Data and Analysis Team, Ofsted
This project from Ofsted is a strong example of statisticians working to fill a significant gap in our data. By using cross-government and commercial data, it has provided novel insights into parents’ experiences accessing childcare. Providing a hyperlocal view of childcare access across 180,000 neighborhoods in England, it has delivered essential insights for both policymakers and the public.
Highly commended:
The Financial Transactions Data and Research team, ONS
This team at ONS has capitalised on the vast amounts of financial data now generated, to produce new timely and innovative insights from interbank payment systems data and card spending data. The quality of the data gathering and the creation of new datasets are particularly noteworthy, making this work an important contribution to our understanding of UK spending.
Related links
Congratulations to the winners of the 2024 Campion Award for Excellence in Official Statistics
Campion Award for Excellence in Official Statistics 2025 open for entries