Efficiency

Recommendation 18: Ad hoc statistics

Responding to requests for new statistics and analysis has always been an integral part of the Authority’s duty to assist in the development and evaluation of public policy. Maintaining a flexible resource to adapt quickly to changing analytical priorities is essential to continue to meet the diverse demands and needs of users.

In April the Authority published its Strategic Business Plan for 2024-25, setting out more detail on its approach to prioritisation in a constrained financial environment. The Business Plan makes a commitment to securing the stability and quality of its core statistical outputs across five priority areas. In taking on additional work, ONS will seek to align its resources to activities and programmes where it is uniquely placed to deliver, and that have the highest impact on the strategic priorities.

The existing ONS Prioritisation Framework within the ONS allows for resource allocation towards the highest priority work first. For ad-hoc commissions, this framework is considered but also extended to assess the public or policy interest and whether the commission resolves evidence gaps.

The UK Statistics Assembly, to be established as per Recommendation 1, will be used to support the openness with which the Authority communicates UK needs. As recommended by PACAC in their inquiry into Transforming the UK’s Evidence Base, such an assembly should be used to identify the benefits new evidence would bring, determine UK needs for evidence as well as research on data gaps and public understanding.

Recommendation 19: Partnerships outside of government

The Authority will work to strengthen its partnerships outside of government and continue to build on the successes of existing relationships, subject to resources available.

ONS depends on close collaborations with external organisations for sharing data, delivering training and apprenticeships, researching methods, and advising on the needs of researchers. Well established partnerships and arrangements for secondments include those with financial institutions (like Visa, Pay.UK, Vocalink, and the Bank of England), with universities (including Southampton, Cardiff and Cardiff Metropolitan, which are near the Authority’s largest sites) and with research institutes such as the Alan Turing Institute, the Wellcome Trust and the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE). ESCoE, sponsored by ONS and hosted by King’s College London, brings together leading UK and international institutions, academics and researchers in the UK’s first dedicated academic centre of expertise for economic measurement.

The Authority also sees its role through championing data sharing and improving access to data as being a crucial component to building long-lasting partnerships outside of government and supporting research. Accredited researchers from academic institutions and think tanks use the globally recognised ONS Secure Research Service (SRS) to securely and ethically access a wealth of de-identified official data for their research projects. The success of this model in enabling academic partners to carry out research for the public good is a key motivation for expanding the capabilities and datasets available in the SRS through transition to the Integrated Data Service. The IDS will offer a more advanced data analysis platform for existing partners and ONS is working closely with them to ensure their needs are met by IDS.

The ONS continues to take opportunities to work closely with users and producers across the statistical community, including collaborating with the Royal Statistical Society on the design of the UK Statistics Assembly.