| Information needed | Response |
|---|---|
| Title and link to statistical output | Provisional November 2021 GCSE Entries for Wales To be published 3/12/2021 |
| Name of producer organisation | Qualifications Wales |
| Name and contact details of person dealing with report | Hannah Williams Senior Statistician Hannah.williams@qualificationswales.org 01633 373292 |
| Name and contact details of Head of Profession for Statistics/Lead Official | Tom Anderson Head of Research and Statistics tom.anderson@qualificationswales.org 01633 373293 |
| Link to published statement about the breach (if relevant) | |
| Date of breach report | 02/12/2021 |
| Information needed | Response |
|---|---|
| Relevant principle(s) and practice(s) | Pre-release statistics shared outside the pre-release list (Principle T3, Practices T3.3, T3.4) |
| Date of occurrence of breach | 02/12/2021
|
The pre-release was issued by the senior statistician by email to the pre-release list at 12.31pm on Thursday 2 December prior to publication at 9.30am on Friday 3 December. The pre-release list contained the contact details of an official that was previously the head of the Qualifications Wales sponsorship unit in Welsh Government rather than the current holder of that post. The error was identified almost immediately and action was taken to correct the breach.
The impact of this breach should be minimal. These are not market sensitive or high profile statistics. The breach involved issuing the statistics to a Welsh Government official who was previously on the pre-release list for the release. The email recall did not fail for that official. It is unlikely that this breach will have a material effect externally.
The original email was recalled and a separate email was sent by the lead official for statistics to the Welsh Government official that had mistakenly sent the release requesting that the email was deleted (in case the recall was not effective).
The release is an annual one and different releases have different officials listed with pre-release access. The pre-release list for this release was created from a previous pre-release list for the November entries release. The list was checked and cross referenced to other lists to try to ensure it was correct and up to date, however, the error was not identified.
We have checked the lists for our other releases to make sure that the same error is not present elsewhere.
We intend to create a single list for all our releases which should enable us to manage the pre-release process better e.g. by making changes to reflect changes of individual in post once.
The lead official for statistics will build in additional checking of the pre-release access list document at the point of signing off the release.