Efficacy

Recommendation 6: Data sharing between departments

The barriers to data sharing within government are well understood: data owners are not currently incentivised to share data. The Authority agrees with the Review, and with the recent report by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) on ‘Transforming the UK’s Evidence Base’, that a drive from the centre of government to change this dynamic, utilising or refining the existing legal gateways and bringing about culture change, is essential. As noted by Professor Lievesley, departments including the Cabinet Office and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology should work, with the support of HM Treasury to remove the barriers to data sharing and hold other departments to account when they are not sharing data. This should drive a resolution to the barriers that exist and set an agreed and consistent cross-government security position regarding the linking of personal data.

PACAC’s recent Inquiry recommends that the Cabinet Office works with ONS to develop a comprehensive new programme to improve data sharing for statistical and research purposes which allows for external scrutiny.

The delivery of the Integrated Data Service (IDS) is a key enabler of the National Data Strategy to enable better government policy and decision making through rapid analysis of integrated data from across government. The success of IDS, and a Future Population and Migration Statistics (FPMS) system based on administrative data, are only possible if Departments overcome the system-level barriers to sharing data identified in the Report. As set out in the ONS FPMS consultation, data sharing is fundamental and will lead to its success or failure.

The OSR will continue to promote data sharing across government as part of its regulatory work. This includes a recent update to its report ‘Data Sharing and Linkage for the Public Good’, which made 16 recommendations to help government confront ingrained challenges.

Recommendation 7: Integrated Data Service

The Integrated Data Service (IDS) brings together ready-to-use data to enable faster and wider collaborative analysis for the public good. The ONS is leading the delivery of the IDS in collaboration with partners across government.

The IDS is creating a central hub of high quality, accessible data that will retire legacy government data systems and remove boundaries to data sharing within government. By transforming government’s use of data, the IDS will unlock timely and impactful insights that will enable key decisions to be made at pace, thereby improving policy outcomes and public services.

As a secure, cloud-native analytical platform that is accredited as a Trusted Research Environment under the Digital Economy Act (2017), the IDS is underpinned by a commitment to ensure data are handled safely and securely, and data owners will always determine who has access to their data, and for what purpose.

Since the publication of Professor Lievesley’s review, the IDS has refreshed its approach to communications and engagement, setting out objectives to clarify the purpose of the IDS and its scope. This renewed approach, which has been agreed with partners across government, will allow challenges and blockers to data sharing to be surfaced more quickly, thereby better ensuring that the needs and concerns of departmental data owners are sufficiently understood.

Recommendation 8: National Statistician role

This is a recommendation for the Cabinet Office to commission a review by the Authority Chair.

The National Statistician role is defined as both the Board’s principal advisor on statistics and the Board’s chief executive, by sections 30 and 31 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 respectively. In creating this dual role, Parliament recognised the importance of both statistical expertise and effective leadership of the organisation, with the National Statistician also having cross-Whitehall responsibility and input as a member of the permanent secretary community. The Board remains of the view that the Authority needs these skills at the top of the organisation, whether in one individual or more.

The Authority welcomes the proposed review of the challenges of recruiting to this role, given the technical expertise and leadership skills required. As Professor Lievesley notes, the options in future appointments depend significantly on whether the legislation remains as now or is amended. Any review should consider how to ensure the salary and recruitment process are in line with comparable senior specialist roles across academia, international peers, and government (for example, the roles of Chief Medical Officer, Chief Scientific Adviser, and Chief Trade Negotiation Adviser), drawing on the experience of testing these job markets recently. The Authority will, as recommended, consult with HM Treasury about the remuneration necessary to attract candidates with suitable experience, including leadership of other national statistical institutes globally. As the Review notes, it is also important that the Board and the Cabinet Office identify ways to strengthen appropriate talent pipelines, to ensure a high quality pool of candidates from within the GSS and analysis professions.

The Authority will agree with the Cabinet Office the timelines of the Chair’s proposed review. The current National Statistician’s term runs until April 2028.

Recommendation 9: ONS Communications

The Review raises important issues about meeting the needs of users and reliability of the ONS website. ONS has a good understanding of the challenges that users face when navigating the website. Over the last year, ONS has prioritised available resources to focus on addressing performance and stability, particularly during the spikes in traffic for key statistical releases. Measurable improvements have been seen and work will continue.

For 2024/25, ONS is prioritising resource on wider website improvements to address feedback from users on clearer navigation around the site, delivering thematic products more efficiently, and serving a wider range of users through automation and APIs. A plan is in place to build a new open-source website platform in 2024-25 and to start migrating new releases in early 2025 using a new content management system that enables increased flexibility of content.

ONS has made progress with addressing performance issues with its website, stabilising access to the site at busy times. ONS has also begun to introduce a more concise and clearer way of presenting outputs, starting with the Retail Sales publication in February 2024. Building on the success of the innovative dissemination techniques pioneered in Census 2021, ONS has continued to develop new web-based tools to facilitate access to statistics, such as the ‘Explore Local Statistics’ tool launched in March 2024 to enable users to compare and visualise statistics about places in the UK. ONS is now working urgently to upgrade its technology, modernise data dissemination and further transform the publication of data and insight to better meet the needs of users. Any requirement for further investment will be reviewed following the detailed design phase.

Through the introduction of a new communications and dissemination model, ONS is taking a user-centred approach to increase the impact of its activity and help people find, understand, explore and act on the range of statistical and analytical outputs. ONS has developed specific content to build understanding and trust in how it uses data for the public good. This content is focused on data, benefits, assurance, education, and engagement and debate, including how uncertainty and revisions are communicated. Communications to highlight and explain where uncertainly exists have been developed for specific releases (GDP, for example) and further work is underway to engage external experts on the best approach to increasing public understanding. Furthermore, the Authority Board intends to recruit a non-executive director with experience in communications.

To extend the reach of statistics and data to audiences with whom ONS traditionally has had less engagement, ONS is working with other organisations to help disseminate its outputs as well as inform the design of communications. Examples include working with business and trade bodies and community and faith groups and collaborating with the Association of Colleges and BBC micro:bit to develop education programmes. ONS has also delivered a media briefing in partnership with the Science Media Centre and will undertake further activity with communications experts to help ensure it is meeting the wider needs of users.

Recommendation 10: Board non-executives

The Authority Board has usually had non-executive directors (NEDs) with professional backgrounds in the media and communications, and has benefitted greatly from their advice.

The last vacancy of this type arose from a preference by the previous Government not to reappoint sitting NEDs. The subsequent recruitment campaign did not succeed in appointing a candidate with similar communications experience. In February 2024, an advert was launched for three new NEDs to replace extant and upcoming vacancies, with communications skills listed in the person specification. This recruitment process was paused during the pre-election period. Following the election this process will resume with a view to appointing a candidate who can meet this need. In making its report to Ministers, the Advisory Assessment Panel will have regard to the Review’s recommendation that NEDs should serve on the Board for longer than three years, to enable appointees to build their understanding of the complex statistical system and to have greater impact. Under the Authority’s founding legislation and the Governance Code on Public Appointments, NEDs may serve on the Board for up to two terms of five years each.

Recommendation 11: Advisory groups

The Authority relies extensively on the work of external experts across many fields and in many different fora. The breadth of this advice is reflected in the number of different teams across the organisation responsible for engaging with expert advisers, and this has resulted in some diversity of practice. Some flexibility in operating different types of groups is necessary and desirable, but the Review raises a welcome opportunity to be more open and transparent with the governance of the National Statistician’s advisory groups.

The recent advertisement for membership of the National Statistician’s Expert User Advisory Committee, for example, was published on the UK Statistics Authority website and social media channels. The Authority will extend this approach to other committees and panels, through the Authority, ONS, or OSR websites, as appropriate.

The recommendation to review the style, design and attendance of these groups and will be taken forward in line with best practice and the organisation’s executive governance structures.

Recommendation 12: User engagement

The Authority is firmly committed to the role of users within statistical decision making. OSR is currently refreshing the Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics. The new edition of the Code will emphasise the need to engage and listen to the views of users when seeking to change or stop official statistics. Stakeholders will have opportunities to comment on all proposed changes to the Code through a consultation that OSR will open in autumn 2024.

ONS works to promote best practice in user research and engagement across government through the Analysis Function and the GSS. ONS resources published recently include a toolkit for stakeholder mapping from the Engagement Hub, and posters on challenging common assumptions about users from the Data Quality Hub. Continued cross-government leadership by ONS is necessary to make sure that the statistical system is one that listens and explains clearly and transparently what it is doing and why.

Recommendation 13: Eurostat and international relations

The UK Statistics Authority has negotiated a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Eurostat under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) between the UK and EU, and is due to sign this in October. It makes provisions under Article 714 (UK participation in EU programmes) and Article 730 (general statistical cooperation with Eurostat).

The Review recognises the importance of strengthening the Authority’s cooperation with international counterparts, both bilaterally and through multilateral institutions. The current five-year GSS strategy, Statistics for the Global Good, is due to be updated by the Authority at the end of its 2020–2025 period. This updated strategy will include an analysis of successes, such as the Authority’s increasing profile within multilateral institutions such as the OECD and IMF. The updated strategy will also include lessons learned on Authority interactions globally and explore future ambitions. Its development will be conducted with input from across the GSS. The Review highlights eight countries (the Netherlands, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand, France, Australia, and the USA) with particular strengths from which the UK statistical system can benefit. The Authority has strong bilateral links with peers in each of these countries, regularly sharing work and hosting and fielding study visits. The Authority will continue to build on these relations to ensure that the UK remains at the forefront of innovation in official statistics internationally, and will explore further opportunities for staff loans and secondments, as recommended by the Review. This will involve producers of official statistics in all different organisations and parts of the UK, through the Authority’s leadership of the GSS and its International Liaison Officer Network.

Furthermore, the Review encourages the Authority to engage internationally on the development of statistical standards and methodologies, building on the work carried out by the National Statistician’s Committee for Advice on Standards for Economic Statistics (NSCASE) which provides advice to the National Statistician on the suitability of current standards across ONS economic data whilst ensuring international comparability. NSCASE is approaching its two-year anniversary and is now a well-established mechanism to provide advice on which standards the UK should adopt in order to meet specific measurement needs of the UK economy. For example, the Committee has recently been reviewing the United Nations’ 2025 update to the System of National Accounts and its suitability for the UK.

The Review also notes the opportunities in working with international peers to explore common challenges and opportunities to embrace new technology and reduce reliance on legacy systems. This is an area in which the Authority is collaborating with international peers through the UN High Level Group for the Modernisation of Official Statistics, leading initiatives to explore the future shape of national statistics institutes and to produce applied statistics using data science and alternative data sources.

Recommendation 14: Survey mandation

Statistics institutes around the world have for some decades now experienced a steady decline in public willingness to participate in surveys. For the ONS Labour Force Survey, the reintroduction of face-to-face interviews, a larger sample size and greater financial incentives for respondents have driven an increase in responses in recent months, after an earlier decline that was accelerated by the Covid pandemic. However, the long term challenge of falling response rates remains. The Authority therefore welcomes the Review’s consideration of measures to increase response rates, including both mandatory and non-mandatory options. Currently, the Census is the only survey which households are required by law to complete. Any move to extend this requirement to other surveys such as the Labour Force Survey would be a major change and would need to follow careful consideration of the consequences for statistical quality and the burden imposed on respondents, as well as the risk of damaging the relationship between ONS and the public.

The Authority will engage with the Cabinet Office and other stakeholders to explore proposals for mandatory completion of household surveys. Following the consultation carried out in 2023, the Authority will also be making recommendations to government and Parliament on how ONS should produce population statistics for England and Wales  Ultimately, mandation requires legislation and this is a matter for the Government and Parliament.