Future commitments
For the second year of the IDTF Implementation Plan, 2023 to 2024, there are an ambitious array of activities planned. A significant proportion of these are continuing from 2022 into 2023. This is particularly the case where longer term, strategic, feasibility studies started in 2022, which will yield results allowing consideration and decisions on next steps. This includes:
- the ongoing delivery of the Government Statistical Service Harmonisation Plan to review data collection standards and definitions for both survey and administrative data, to ensure they keep up with developing society. Priorities include a new UK wide social economic background harmonised standard for online data collection; a new marital status harmonised standard for online data collection; a new disability harmonised standard for online data collection; a new ethnicity harmonised standard for online data collection; an initial review of the sexual orientation standard; and updating the harmonisation webpages on sex to reflect a suite of existing technical guidance for data collectors.
- the continued implementation of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Survey Strategy and other data collection expansions in departments such as the Department for Education, Department for Transport, the Office for Students, and the Welsh and Scottish Governments to fill data gaps, including those people living outside of private households. The ONS will be evaluating the impact of implementing an Adaptive Survey Design on the transformed Labour Force Survey to inform any future changes regarding oversampling or further targeting of data collection on other surveys.
- research into increased use of administrative data in departments such as HM Revenue and Customs, Home Office, Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero, Scottish Government, Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, Ministry of Justice and in the ONS in the context of designing the future system for the production of population, migration and social statistics.
- continuing to increase collaboration across the UK statistical system and identifying opportunities to work together, including with the devolved administrations, and with the ONS playing an increasingly proactive role in facilitating this through the new Government Statistical Service Sub-committee on Inclusive Data.
- further development of data linkage methods and approaches, and the delivery of future versions of the Integrated Data Service (IDS) to enable enhanced intersectional analysis of datasets linked across government organisations, including development of the Equality Data Asset (EDA) prototype to the next stage. This will iteratively bring together a range of record level, longitudinal datasets held across government, enabling more robust and in-depth analysis of equality.
Future commitments on trust - Inclusive Data Principle 1
Create an environment of trust and trustworthiness which allows and encourages everyone to count and be counted in UK data and evidence.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue to lead a Task and Finish Group addressing the ‘social contract’ recommendation of the Inclusive Data Taskforce, with the aim of taking forward findings from research with young people about what inspires their trust and what their specific information needs are in relation to sharing personal data. Decisions will be taken in the summer of 2023 about next steps, based on the advice of the project’s Task and Finish group comprised of independent experts and representatives from the devolved administrations.
- Kings College London will continue to use Citizen Science to collect data with communities in 2023. The first cohort of citizen science projects has been recruited, and will begin working in June, with projects concluding in December. They encompass 35 projects in total, three of which are based in the UK, working on biodiversity, accessibility and urban mobility.
- As part of plans for consultation and engagement around the National Statistician’s recommendation on transforming statistics about the population, the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Engagement Hub, through networks of charities, community leaders of under-represented groups and forums such as the ONS Assembly, will work with organisations representing different sections of society in 2023, specifically engaging in discussions about these future plans.
- The ONS is currently engaged in discovery work exploring different ways of engaging with under-represented community groups in the context of voluntary household surveys. Implementation of new approaches based on the findings is expected in 2024 to 2025.
- A new training module to raise awareness and build skills in inclusive recruitment practices is being designed for trial among those in the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Social Surveys Field Manager roles. Once delivered in 2023, the ONS will evaluate its impact with a view to using the practices for all recruitment in the ONS.
- The Government Analysis Function and the ONS will continue training and mentoring initiatives aimed at increasing the diversity of the workforce. This includes introduction of a new learning and development programme for analysts from lower socio-economic backgrounds which will be launched in May 2023.
- The Welsh Government Equality, Race and Disability Evidence Units are researching the fundamental barriers to collecting, analysing, and reporting equality data across Wales’s public sector bodies. The core aim is to provide the Units with an evidence base to enable them to co-ordinate and encourage improved equality data collection based on evidence.
- The Scottish Government will implement wide-range work to improve inclusivity of data and evidence, as outlined in the Equality Evidence Strategy 2023 to 2025, developed following public consultation in 2022.
- From April 2023, the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Time Use Survey will become part of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence. During 2023, there will be a review of the ONS survey alongside other time use surveys to look at survey design, data collection, response and the suitability of instruments for different population groups. The findings and supplementary user research will underpin the approach taken for 2024 and beyond.
- As part of the ONS social survey transformation programme, the ONS will consider how community engagement with under-represented groups may be enhanced. They also aim to reinforce and introduce new mechanisms for meeting respondent inclusivity needs in the course of their data collection.
- The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) publishes diversity data to shed light on any impediments in its systems or biases in its processes leading to under-representation of some groups in its research. During 2023, their diversity data collection will be expanded to include all protected characteristics included in the Equality Act (2010). Its next diversity data report will be published in 2026 to enable trend analysis while allowing sufficient time for the interventions they have introduced to improve inclusivity to have an impact.
- The UK Research and Innovation Prevention Research Partnership (UKRI PRP) funded Violence, Health and Society Consortium (VISION) (City, University of London) has researched barriers to disclosure of violence affecting minoritized A briefing paper based on the findings is expected to be published in Spring 2023.
Future commitments on systemic working - Inclusive Data Principle 2
Take a whole system approach, working in partnership with others to improve the inclusiveness of UK data and evidence.
- The National Statistician’s Inclusive Data Advisory Committee will continue to provide external, transparent monitoring of progress.
- In collaboration with stakeholders across the Government Statistical Service (GSS), a special sub-committee on inclusive data reporting to the GSS Analysis and Evaluation Committee was convened for the first time in May 2023. It will benefit from the advice of the National Statistician’s Inclusive Data Advisory Committee in developing plans for delivering the commitments made in the Implementation Plan.
- The Inter Administration Committee will continue to support improving data inclusivity through its work programme which is monitored quarterly.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will build on the momentum gained in 2022 to strengthen its convening role across the UK statistical system, including through the governance mechanisms outlined.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will progress the formal process of proposing a new United Nations City Group on Inclusive Data in 2023. This will involve exploring and approaching relevant UN groups to endorse the UN City Group, applying to host a side event at the United Nations Statistical Commission in March 2024; and soft lobbying of the group in relevant international events and conferences, for example, the UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) expert meeting on dissemination and communication of statistics in October 2023.
- In 2023, the ONS will engage with the Inclusive Data Charter (IDC) Network to raise awareness internationally of the Inclusive Data Taskforce Recommendations. The ONS will use the Inclusive Data Charter Network as a forum for sharing updates and learning from the work being undertaken across the UK to make data more inclusive.
- The Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub will continue to explore a joint funding initiative to establish a survey of disabled people across the UK focused on lived experiences and barriers faced.
Future commitments on coverage – Inclusive Data Principle 3
Ensure that all groups are robustly captured across key areas of life in UK data and review practices regularly.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue comparisons using the 2021 Census for England and Wales with relevant administrative data to assess the representativeness of different data sources. Alongside this, the ONS will publish new research in summer 2023, alongside the public consultation underpinning the National Statistician’s recommendation on transforming statistics about the population. This will include further developments to population estimates, updating their research on ethnicity and housing to 2021, and new research on developing evidence on health, housing and longitudinal outcomes, including on under-represented groups such as veterans and refugees. In May 2023, the ONS will also publish a paper discussing different definitions and population bases that will help statistics be more inclusive.
- Work on admin-based ethnicity statistics will continue, involving incorporating additional data sources to improve population coverage, review and refinement of the rule applied to deal with multiple ethnicity records for an individual, further exploring methods to adjust for missingness, and engaging with data suppliers to better understand and improve data collection practices. This work will be used to inform the National Statistician’s recommendation on transforming statistics about the population. Work to produce admin-based ethnicity statistics for 2021, which will include both aggregate-level and record-level comparisons with Census 2021, and updating admin-based housing by ethnicity statistics to 2021, is planned for later in 2023.
- The Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub will continue work to address ethnicity data gaps identified as part of recommended actions included in the Inclusive Britain report.
- The UK Research and Innovation Prevention Research Partnership (UKRI PRP) funded Violence, Health and Society Consortium (VISION) (City, University of London) will continue development of a Risk of Bias tool to be applied to the use of data regarding ethnicity and immigration status. This tool will be trialled and critically reviewed by researchers through 2023 and 2024 and will be published by the end of 2024.
- The Equality and Human Rights Commission will continue to review key datasets and subjects used in their Measurement Framework, publishing a new data gaps strategy in 2024 to inform revisions to their Measurement Framework for future iterations of their regularly published report, Is Britain Fairer?.
- The Department for Transport will introduce an increased sample size on its National Travel Survey from 2023 to meet the need for more robust and timely data for analysis of certain demographic groups.
- The Home Office will work with the ONS to undertake analysis of hate crime using a multi-year pooled dataset of the Crime Survey for England and Wales, expected to be published in 2025.
- The Office for Students will continue the enhanced data collection of personal characteristics information for higher education students, with statistical reporting of experiences and outcomes in 2024.
- HM Revenue and Customs will continue to evaluate options for including additional demographic information as part of their administrative data collection, with initial recommendations expected to be agreed by mid-2023.
- The UK Research and Innovation Prevention Research Partnership (UKRI PRP) funded Violence, Health and Society Consortium (VISION) (City, University of London) will continue development of a measurement framework for protected characteristics, based on the findings of an assessment of data collected by the Crime Survey for England and Wales, medical records, mental health survey data, police and specialised services data. The draft framework will be submitted for further consultation with data users and providers during 2023.
- The Ministry of Justice is scoping work to improve the capture of disability data collected in the prison and probation data systems. This will ensure alignment with the harmonised standards and legislation, and support monitoring, policy development and operational delivery of services.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Home Office will continue to work together to refine migration statistics based on Home Office administrative data. Specifically, they are in the early stages of developing a method for using Home Office administrative data to estimate the migration patterns of EU visa holders and other EU nationals with settled status in the UK under the EU Settlement Scheme.
- The Home Office will continue to work with the ONS on the Refugee Integration Outcomes (RIO) cohort study. Building on the first iteration of RIO, the next iteration will link Census 2021 data to the Cohort Study. Subject to funding, plans also include extending the study to other refugee groups for example, Ukrainian or Afghan.
- The ONS will also explore how to expand the Refugee Integration Outcomes study to include data not captured through administrative data linkage, such as perceptions on help and access to services, health and well-being.
- The Home Office is working with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Local Government Association to develop quarterly migration statistics at a local level, supporting a place-based approach so that local communities and others can utilise this data to understand and respond to local needs. Further work is also planned to utilise the data to identify and assess local needs such as how they can best support resettlement and integration of asylum seekers and refugees, to inform policy and operational responses.
- In 2023, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue to focus on “Inclusivity by Design” as part of its survey strategy, including development of guidance by the end of the year on how to proactively build-in inclusivity and accessibility in surveys. This will also include launching two domain specific strategies – for Business and Social surveys – in early 2023 to 2024.
- The Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub will continue to explore a joint funding initiative to establish a survey of disabled people across the UK focused on lived experiences and barriers faced.
- The Home Office will continue to explore ways to improve the collection of personal characteristics data in all their data collections, increasing awareness of the importance of collecting these data and fostering a greater commitment to collecting this at the outset of a system or process.
- The findings of the ONS research to understand how data on personal characteristics is collected by data suppliers will contribute to the planned consultation on the National Statistician’s recommendation on transforming statistics about the population.
- As part of transforming statistics about the population, the ONS will continue to explore the role of household surveys to gather data on protected characteristics where there is no or limited potential in administrative data and this will be considered as part of the user consultation planned for 2023.
Evaluating and addressing issues with the coverage of populations not resident in private households
- Following scoping work in relation to estimating populations not resident in private households, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an evidence review of existing data on ‘hidden’ homelessness across the UK in March 2023, highlighting the complexities and data gaps in relation to this population. Subject to funding, the ONS will pilot the approach suggested by its research into capturing the scale of women experiencing “hidden” homelessness across the UK.
- The Welsh Government will continue work to establish an individual-level homelessness data collection. A pilot project for sharing samples of existing data is being carried out with local authorities, aiming for agreement to share initial data by mid-2023. Following an initial round of engagement with local authorities a data specification will continue to be developed during 2023.
- Scottish Government is currently in the process of commissioning research into hidden homelessness to reach a better understanding of those people who are homeless, at imminent risk of homelessness or who face housing insecurity but do not appear in Scotland’s official figures. An improved understanding of the different routes into and out of homelessness will help to address gaps in provision and make Scotland’s homelessness system more responsive to people’s needs.
- Based on an initial high-level review of data source availability for different communal establishments, and advice from a strategic group and topic experts, the ONS will identify key population groups on which to focus, to better understand how they are captured in UK data and evidence and how coverage of these groups may be improved.
- During 2022, the ONS began a review of existing administrative data sources relating to communal establishments across UK countries. Based on the findings of an initial high-level review of data sources available for different communal establishments and transient population groups, such as people experiencing homelessness, the ONS will evaluate the feasibility and value of collecting survey data from these populations.
- During 2023, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will carry out user research to understand user needs for capturing ethnicity within the Management Expectations Survey.
- The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will progress development of its User Engagement Strategy.
- The Department for Communities will continue to progress work to develop strategies to improve social inclusion for the Northern Ireland Executive. These will focus on disability, gender equality, LGBTQI+ and poverty.
Future commitments on disaggregation – Inclusive Data Principle 4
Improve the UK data infrastructure to enable robust and reliable disaggregation and intersectional analysis across the full range of relevant groups and populations, and at differing levels of geography.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will progress work outlined in the subnational statistics analysis workplan, producing more timely, granular and harmonised subnational statistics related to a range of topics including welfare, wellbeing and housing, crime and justice, and health and social care.
- In response to their consultation on the Ethnicity Facts and Figures website, the Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub have committed to working with departments to improve the granularity of datasets and reduce the use of binary white/other than white classifications.
- The Department for Education has begun mandatory collection of Education, Health and Care (EHC) Plan data at the level of the child instead of aggregate Local Authority level data. The first publication will be in late spring 2023. Mandatory collection of these data will continue in future.
- In 2023 to 2024, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, in partnership with Arts Council England, will increase the sample size for the Participation Survey to 175,000, enabling Local Authority level estimates to be produced.
- In 2023, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport will also publish research into the suitability of using a model-based method to obtain Local Authority level metrics for the Community Life Survey.
- The Department for Work and Pensions will publish data and analysis from the boosted Family Resources Survey 2022 to 2023 in March 2024. The boost to the Family Resources Survey sample is under review following a return to a target of achieving 20,000 households from April 2023.
- The Welsh Government is currently developing plans for the National Survey for Wales for 2024 to 2025. During 2023 to 2024 they will continue work to review the survey approach, looking at opportunities for sample boosts and data linkage to improve the granularity of data.
- The Equality, Race and Disability Units of the Welsh Government are currently identifying opportunities for sample boosts and data linkage, to improve granularity of data as part of the project that began in late 2022, and is now in the scoping and development stage.
- Following the introduction of its Adaptive Survey Design (ASD) for the Transformed Labour Force Survey in November 2022, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will be evaluating its impact to inform any future changes regarding oversampling or further targeting of data collection. Results from the first iteration of the ASD are expected from May 2023.
- The Department for Education will continue to use targeted oversampling of groups with historically lower response rates in its Parent, Pupil and Learner Panel Survey during the academic year 2022 to 2023.
- The Department for Education will continue to undertake targeted oversampling of disadvantaged groups in its Children of the 2020s (EOPS-A), Five to Twelve (EOPS-B) and Growing Up in the 2020s (EOPS-C) cohort studies. Fieldwork and delivery of the data will continue throughout 2023, with results from the first wave published in 2024.
- Following the findings of initial analysis on the available protected characteristic data for the Individuals, Small Business and Agents (ISBA) survey, HM Revenue and Customs plan to conduct a full feasibility study to assess the potential to increase the representation of ethnic minority groups.
- The Welsh Government’s Equality, Race and Disability Evidence Units are undertaking a feasibility study to assess whether increasing the sample size for minority groups through targeted oversampling will enhance the availability, quality, and granularity of equalities data collected by the National Survey for Wales.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue to work in partnership with the Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub to develop an Equality Data Asset, iteratively bringing together a range of record level, longitudinal datasets held across government, enabling more robust and in-depth analysis of equality. During 2023 to 2024, building on lessons learned in the development of the prototype in the Secure Research Service (SRS), Companies House data will be linked as appropriate with 2021 Census data as part of the ongoing development of the Integrated Data Service (IDS). Priorities for future iterations of the Equality Data Asset and inclusion of further variables will also be considered.
- The ONS will publish the results of ongoing intersectional analysis on the 2021 Census for England and Wales during 2023 to 2024.
- The ONS will continue its work in 2023 to 2024 using linked datasets to enable more granular and intersectional analysis of social mobility, shaped by stakeholder engagement and user interest.
- As part of the publication of the human capital indicator framework, the ONS planned to undertake intersectional analysis in 2022 on the drivers of knowledge and skills acquisition across the lifespan. This was delayed with the indicator framework, data collection and analysis now expected in 2023 to 2024.
- In 2023, Natural England, an arm’s length body of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will publish a report on the effect of ethnicity and disability on access to the natural environment based on the People and Nature Survey.
- Natural England plan to improve the intersectional analysis of the People and Nature Survey, subject to funding being agreed.
- The Equality and Human Rights Commission will publish the next iteration of “Is Britain Fairer?”, which will outline the findings of intersectional analyses in relation to the labour market, poverty and health.
- The Welsh Government will progress work outlined in its Equalities Evidence Strategy. This includes work by the Race Disparity Evidence Unit to measure the impact of the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan, to understand whether it has made a real change to people’s lives and experiences. An initial assessment and a framework for measuring change are being developed.
- The Welsh Government’s Race Disparity Evidence Unit will pilot research on the protected characteristics of Public Sector Bodies boards. A data collection tool has been developed and publication is scheduled for winter 2023.
- The ONS will continue to work with National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency to agree an approach to delivering UK-wide analysis from the censuses.
- The Ministry of Justice has revised its intersectional analysis to provide a robust assessment of whether and to what extent there are intersectional effects on judicial appointments which they will publish in the Diversity of Judiciary Bulletin in July 2023.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue work on transforming statistics about the population. This includes a new public consultation planned for summer 2023, which will ask how far the proposal meets user needs, and what should be prioritised in ongoing research. The results of the consultation will inform a recommendation by the National Statistician on the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales.
- As a further refinement of the overall implementation of the ONS Survey Strategy which began in 2022, work will begin in late spring of 2023 to develop two domain-specific strategies for Business and Social surveys.
Future commitments on concepts – Inclusive Data Principle 5
Ensure appropriateness and clarity over the concepts being measured across all data collected.
This Inclusive Data Principle has synergies with Inclusive Data Principle 7 on Harmonisation. Further information can be found in that Future Commitments section.
- In 2022, the Welsh Government considered ways of co-producing and working alongside disabled people to develop evidence in line with the social model of disability, including undertaking a literature review and seeking advice from their Disability Rights Taskforce. Based on the findings, they plan to commission work to develop a theory of change in Spring 2023.
- The Cabinet Office will continue to work with Government Departments and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to understand and improve socio-economic background declaration rates in the Civil Service workforce. This data will then be used to develop a data-driven, evidence-led approach to improving inclusion within the Civil Service.
- The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has worked closely with the local authority Central and Local Information Partnership (CLIP) groups, reviewing new data requirements. In December 2022, changes to nationality breakdowns for the homelessness statistics (H-CLIC) data collection were approved and from April 2023 will include breakdowns for those returning or arriving from Syria, Afghanistan, Hong Kong or Ukraine.
- The ONS has introduced a respondent-centric approach to the end-to-end design of its surveys, with the aim of making the survey experience relatable, understandable, and appropriate for respondents. In 2022, this approach was used specifically in the development of the Transformed Labour Force Survey. The ONS will now review the outcomes of this approach and the insights generated to inform how this can be rolled out to other surveys.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue delivery of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation Plan, which summarises the plans for reviewing and updating harmonised standards, definitions, and guidance. See Inclusive Data Principle 7 for further information.
- The Executive Office in Northern Ireland drafted guidance on monitoring ethnic populations to provide a standardised framework to help public bodies collect information in a consistent but flexible manner, improving service delivery and equality for different ethnic and migrant populations living in Northern Ireland. The draft guidance was produced and considered during 2022, with implementation and publication in 2023 subject to agreement by all relevant bodies.
- In 2023, HM Revenue and Customs will commence a review of metadata relating to the official statistics they produce and will improve published information about how data have been collected, where necessary.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue to publish information about the administrative data sources that have been used in the transformation of statistics about the population, including information about the quality of the sources. This builds on the reports that have been published on the quality of administrative data used for Census 2021 and the quality of administrative data sources used to develop the Statistical Population Dataset for England and Wales. Publications are planned in 2023, which will cover data sources used in population, migration, income, education, and housing statistics. The publications will help producers and users to understand the strengths and limitations of the sources, covering how the data have been collected and processed.
Future commitments on methods - Inclusive Data Principle 6
Broaden the range of methods that are routinely used and create new approaches to understanding experiences across the population of the UK.
- In Summer 2023, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) will consult the public on transforming statistics about the population. The results of this will inform the National Statistician’s recommendation for the way forward.
- In 2023, qualitative and quantitative research to inform understanding of inclusivity of administrative data will continue, with findings from this work contributing to the National Statistician’s recommendation on transforming statistics about the population.
- The ONS has published the pilot innovative qualitative research exploring inclusivity and representativeness in administrative data for statistical purposes in the ONS working paper series. The ONS will continue to carry out further research to identify quantitative and qualitative methods to explore quality, inclusivity and representativeness in administrative data for statistical purposes.
- In 2022, the ONS began a programme of qualitative research with statistically under-represented communities, focusing on those highlighted in the Inclusive Data Taskforce recommendations. A further publication is expected in the autumn of 2023 focusing on domestic abuse survivors’ experiences of temporary ‘safe’ accommodation in England. Another publication will follow in early 2024 on the lived experiences of displaced young people in England (including managed migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers).
- The ONS will continue developing the Integrated Data Service (IDS) throughout 2023. The programme will continue to develop new analysis tools to help researchers and analysts make best use of the data in the IDS, prioritising open-source tools such as R and Python in alignment with the Reproducible Analytical Pipeline (RAP) Strategy.
- In the context of the Sustainable Development Goals and indicators, the ONS will explore the need for a non-official sources protocol for qualitative data to assess the suitability of using specific qualitative data sources to monitor progress towards the 2030 agenda. This is anticipated during 2023.
- The Ministry of Justice will develop work to apply wage decomposition methods to better understand factors influencing pay and reward inequality, scoping the feasibility of applying this approach to their gender pay gap report.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS), together with the Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub, will complete and publish analyses exploring how maternal ethnicity, socio-economic status and other factors influence infant mortality. This work will allow development of more targeted interventions for maternal health disparities.
- The Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero have been working with the ONS and Administrative Data Research UK to link data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (Understanding Society) with data on household energy consumption among those giving consent for the linkage. This will enable exploration of patterns of consumption for different types of household. A research-ready dataset is expected to be available in the Secure Research Service (SRS) in 2023.
- In 2022, the ONS published a high-level design for a Census Data Asset which would be a fully representative and inclusive prospective linkage study for the population, using relevant survey and administrative data, and ethnographic studies. It would enable granular, longitudinal analysis of diverse population groups. This has set the scene for work that could happen in 2023 and beyond, pending funding decisions.
- The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will progress pilot work with the Ministry of Justice, Office for National Statistics and Department for Health and Social Care linking homelessness data with a range of data sources. These projects will provide more detailed information on homelessness and rough sleeping and the relationships with prison discharge and substance use, as well as exploring repeat homelessness.
- The Department for Education will continue data collection for its Longitudinal Study of Young People in England 2, and the EOPS programme comprising Children of the 2020s, Five to Twelve, and Growing Up in the 2020s.
- In Northern Ireland (NI) work will continue to develop a NI Longitudinal Education Outcomes database in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department for the Economy and academics in the Queen’s and Ulster Universities.
Future commitments on harmonisation - Inclusive Data Principle 7
Harmonised standards for relevant groups and populations should be reviewed at least every five years and updated and expanded where necessary, in line with changing social norms and respondent and user needs.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will play an active part in the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Taskforce on Population Concepts and Definitions to ensure this work informs transformation of statistics about the population. This will include seeking to add the capability to apply and report on new definitions and concepts in addition to the “usually resident” standard UN definition. The priorities and needs of users will be understood through the planned public consultation in summer 2023 on the future of population and social statistics in England and Wales.
- Through 2023 and 2024, the ONS-led Titchfield City Group on Ageing-related Statistics and Age-disaggregated Data will continue collaboration with the international community to develop reference guidance, with the aim of publishing recommendations in 2025.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue work outlined in the Harmonisation workplan. In 2023 to 2024, they plan to publish:
- a new UK-wide social economic background harmonised standard for online data collection
- a new marital status harmonised standard for online data collection
- a new disability harmonised standard for online data collection
- a new ethnicity harmonised standard for online data collection
- an initial review of the sexual orientation standard and update the harmonisation webpages on sex to reflect a suite of existing technical guidance for data collectors.
- The ONS will review the Harmonisation workplan in early 2024 and agree a new two-year strategy to reviewing the standards.
- The ONS will continue to work on improving the coherence and comparability of data on key shared priorities across the UK and the devolved administrations. Current priorities are the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the economy including economic inactivity, productivity and income and earnings, green jobs, inter-regional trade following the UK’s exit from the European Union, and health. The ONS will continue to publish releases in 2023 with new UK-wide comparable data in some topics and explaining the differences across the UK in others where comparability cannot be achieved.
- The ONS will publish an update on the Government Statistical Service Coherence workplan in late 2023/4.
- The Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub will work with other Government Departments and agencies to understand when data collections will be updated to collect data based on the new ethnicity harmonised standard following its publication planned for early 2024.
- The Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub is considering a qualitative study with local authorities to understand data availability for different groups and recommend where it might be improved with regard to harmonisation and other data quality issues.
- HM Revenue and Customs will evaluate the impact of their new process introduced in 2022 to ensure that research bids consider the collection of protected characteristics data for individuals.
- HM Revenue and Customs will produce data standards for the collection of protected characteristics information in existing data collected by HMRC and in data that may be collected in the future.
- The Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub will use the findings from research with people from different ethnic groups to better understand the language and terminology that they identify with, undertaken in response to Action 7 in the Inclusive Britain report, to support a review of how media coverage of race and ethnicity issues impact communities being covered. They will develop recommendations which will encourage responsible and accurate reporting on race issues.
Future commitments on accessibility – Inclusive Data Principle 8
Ensure UK data and evidence are equally accessible to all, while protecting the identity and confidentiality of those sharing their data.
- The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Centre for Equalities and Inclusion will be working with other producers of relevant online tools to develop a prototype Equalities Data Portal by the end of 2023, with testing and further refinement to take place during 2024.
- The Welsh Government Equality, Race and Disability Evidence Units are in the process of assessing the requirements for a one-stop shop for Wales-based equality, race and disability evidence, alongside advice and guidance to support others with the collection and use of equality data. They are looking at user requirements and how any tool would sit next to the other evidence dissemination tools already available or being developed.
- As part of their work leading a data openness initiative with the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) (the GRADE data sharing project), the Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Ofqual) have made relevant administrative micro-data available to accredited researchers through the ONS Secure Research Service (SRS). This enables independent research based on pseudonymised data, including allowing scrutiny into the awarding of grades and in particular on protected groups. Further data will be shared in the future depending on demand.
- In Northern Ireland (NI) the Educational Outcomes Linkage (EOL) has been developed as part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded Administrative Data Research NI initiative to enable accredited researchers to access linked administrative data collected by the Department of Education. The dataset was launched in March 2023 and is regarded as phase one of a wider project to create an NI Longitudinal Educational Outcomes database which will be developed in collaboration with the Department of Education, the Department for the Economy and academics in the Queen’s and Ulster Universities.
- The Home Office has been working with the ONS to develop a linked dataset, the Refugee Integration Outcomes (RIO) cohort study, to better understand outcomes for resettled refugees and those granted asylum. The plan is to extend access to this dataset to the wider research community.
- The Scottish Government has been progressing work to improve the equality breakdowns available from the National Performance Framework (NPF) indicators. They will continue to work to improve transparency where breakdowns are not currently provided.
- The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will continue to update its dashboard for the 25 Year Environment Plan Outcome Indicator Framework.
- Alongside regular maintenance and updates, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities will continue to develop its Spotlight dashboard in an iterative manner, depending on government and stakeholder priorities and data availability.
- The Scottish Government will continue to update and improve the Equality Evidence Finder, taking on board user feedback gathered during the Equality Evidence Strategy consultation.
- The Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub will continue development of explorative data dashboards, with the first dashboard, on social mobility data, due to be published in September 2023.
- The Welsh Government plans to develop an interactive web-based viewer to present the results of the National Survey for Wales, improving accessibility while still maintaining the simplicity that is important to users.
- In 2022, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport explored the feasibility of using the Integrated Data Service (IDS) as a platform for users to visualise the Participation Survey data. Although the existing platform will not fully meet the Department’s needs, other options for visualising their data will be explored in 2023.
- The People and Nature Survey team in the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will publish all project outputs in HTML from 2023 to 2024 onwards.
- The Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) is developing HTML publications to make their outputs more accessible. Examples include publications for Universal Credit, Cancer Waiting Times, Annual enrolments at grant-aided schools, the monthly Labour Market Report and Attitudes to walking, cycling and public transport. More publications will be developed in HTML format as Reproducible Analytical Pipelines are implemented across all of NISRA.
- The Home Office will continue to develop its statistical releases to ensure that they are suitable for expert and non-expert users. This will include increasing the number of datasets available in an open-data format for users to conduct their own analyses.
- The Department for Education will continue testing a prototype public data Application Programming Interface (API) and prioritise development of the API capability as an additional route for users to access departmental statistics in a new way over the next year. This summer the Explore Education Statistics service is leading a programme of research understanding users of official statistics, refreshing current understanding to help inform future developments and ensure continued engagement with the user base.
- The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) has committed to further exploring both alternative interactive platforms and application programming interfaces (APIs) to make data and insights as widely available as possible to meet diverse user needs.
- Following implementation of planned updates, the Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub will commission the latest accessibility audit of the Ethnicity Facts and Figures website.
- In 2022, the Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub published a progress update to the Inclusive Britain report, including findings from research with people from different ethnic groups to better understand the language and terminology that they identify with. They will continue to review how media coverage of race and ethnicity issues impacts the communities being covered and develop recommendations to encourage responsible and accurate reporting on ethnicity issues.
- The Office for National Statistics (ONS) will continue work to review communications and publications best practice to inform the development of its accessibility guidance and has convened a working group to take forward the development of accessible communications. The ONS will build on learning from Census 2021 to improve access to outputs, using tools such as ‘Create a Custom Dataset’ to share results from other surveys.
- The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee are reviewing Biodiversity Indicators and will implement the accessibility recommendations during 2023.