3. Priorities

3.1 High level priorities

Underpinning the design and format of the Assembly was the wish that discussion should embrace both needs and value. Needs, that is specific user requirements, are of course important and should be heard. Value comes from addressing needs, and impacting on the public good, through advances in a modern statistical system. As already noted, all of this is dependent on resources.

The following four high-level priorities are therefore suggested for the Authority and the GSS to pursue and to help frame their decisions and actions in response to the Assembly.

1. Re-invigorate sustained and effective user engagement, in which official statistics producers take a lead in understanding the needs for statistics and curating relevant sources, to help answer the questions that  the public, businesses, local government, the media and academics, as well as policy-makers have about the economic, social and environmental situation. This would also help understand and increase the value of statistics.
2. Develop a portfolio of official and unofficial sources, along with use of appropriate methodologies, to ensure user needs for more granular statistics are met (small areas, urban/rural, sub-groups of society, under-represented groups, and so on).
3. Commit to, invest in, and take a leadership position in a significant scaling up in the use of administrative data, as well as improvement of its quality and coherence, across the entire portfolio of sources of official statistics, including government departments and external bodies, alongside and integrated with surveys, censuses, and other types of data.
4. Recognise the needs for UK-wide statistics and advocate for, and support, harmonised data where desirable.

Since the role of NSEUAC is to “provide strategic advice and insights to the National Statistician about how the UK statistical system can best maximise effective engagement with all users to enable the UK Statistics Authority and the wider system”, we urge the Authority to continue to raise public awareness of the existence of this committee and how to contact it.

3.2 Immediate actions

The following are suggestions for actions that could be taken quickly and, we believe, without significant cost, or which could lay the foundations for later decisions and so expedite them. The numbers at the end of each suggestion relate to the numbering system in Section 5, and follow the order of sessions in the Assembly programme.

1. Establish a forum of users and producers to develop a plan for better coherence across the statistical system. In particular, the forum should decide what could be achieved quickly. (5.2.2.)
2. Engage official statisticians more in the design of digital data architectures for administrative data from diverse sources. A cross-GSS group could make a start on this, building on and coordinating existing departmental efforts, to enhance standardisation, in order to feed into more sharing. (5.3.2, 4, and 9.)
3. The challenge of recruiting statisticians. Ask the RSS, ONS, Market Research Society, National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), Ipsos, Kantar, and others, to form a working group to consider and recommend how methodologists and statisticians could be better developed and retained. Perhaps an Academy or specific career development pathways might be appropriate mechanisms. Establish a graduate recruitment programme along the lines of Ministry of Defence sponsorship of students into relevant degrees. (5.3.17.)
4. Provide guidance on statistical methods for coping with discontinuities in time series arising from changing data collection methods. An academic review could be set up quickly. (5.3.16, 5.9.10.)
5. All online published government statistics should include a ‘Comments’ box, permitting user feedback and better understanding of who the users are. (5.4.2.)
6. Publish good stories on how data are used for public benefit. (5.4.19.)
7. Enhance communication efforts to clearly articulate the direct benefits of data linkage and sharing to the public. (5.7.1.)
8. The ONS or GSS should establish an online ‘trust centre’ on the website to provide transparency about data usage and security protocols, similar to the models used by Stats Canada and CSO Ireland. (5.7.16.)
9. Develop the GSS Environment, Climate and Nature theme to include user forums and events, bringing together producers and users of statistics relating to the theme, and helping build a diverse user community for the theme and a tailored calendar of engagement activity. (5.8.7.)
10. Publish detailed information on the use of administrative data in the last census, including areas where response rates were lower and how administrative data was used to fill gaps. (5.9.17.)
11. Set up a forum (including business groups) to conduct research and recommend a communication strategy to explain the importance of data collection to business owners and encourage their participation. (5.10.13.)
12. Transition from reporting average weekly earnings to average monthly earnings to better reflect current business practices. (5.10.15.)
13. Produce coherent definitions of ethnicity, family types, and areas with inconsistency, and require their use across all government departments. (5.11.1 and 2.)
14. Produce a standard document explaining why ethnicity information is required and why it is important. (5.11.9.)
15. Produce a dashboard showing how different crime rates are evolving, and showing an impact-weighted overall measure. (5.13.1 and 12.)
16. Promote collaboration among local government organisations to share resources and develop common data models. Develop consistency across local authority data systems, especially for administrative data. (5.15.7.)