We have taken a radical approach to analysis and been at the forefront of supplying insight on society and the economy to help the public, businesses and decision makers understand and respond to the pandemic.

• Central to the COVID-19 response has been our world-leading COVID-19 Infection Survey launched in partnership with Oxford University. This has enabled weekly statistics of new infections and the positivity rate of COVID-19 in the community down to sub-regional levels and by a range of characteristics across the UK. By autumn the survey had scaled up to 150,000 participants a fortnight and was vital to informing decision-making on the UK variant. In testing for antibodies it is now providing vital information on understanding the longevity of vaccine induced immunity.
• We have transformed our weekly Opinions Survey to provide vital information on changes in societal behaviour which have directly informed government policy.
• Death Registration data has been vital to understand the impact of the pandemic in households, care homes and hospitals. It has provided information on relative risk for everyone in the UK.
• On the economy, these past 12 months have seen a radical expansion of our weekly faster indicators release, making use of rapid response surveys, novel data sources, and experimental methods to bring together real-time insights on the pandemic and on the Labour Market.
• In the lead up to the end of the EU Exit Transition period, we produced new publications on how the UK trades with the rest of the world. This included insights into trade in goods and services by business characteristics as well as developing models and obtaining new indicators to strengthen our analysis and understanding of movements in trade data.
• We have continued to produce our core business as usual statistical
  and analytical products – crime bulletins; labour market statistics; prices; and GDP – even where the collection, analysis and dissemination of these outputs has been significantly impacted by the pandemic.

We have also continued to radically strengthen our data capability providing timely access to data, technology, modern data science techniques and methodology for the ONS, GSS, wider users across government and the research community. Joining up data improves outcomes for citizens and allows us to be more responsive. This capability has enhanced the Government’s ability to respond to emerging needs such as those presented by COVID-19.

Our radical approach to analysis and insight go beyond COVID-19 with ONS a leading delivery partner for the cross-Government Integrated Data Programme (IDP). We are building a comprehensive data service, underpinned by secure and trusted infrastructure, which will enable governments to make best use of data assets and support unlocking the potential of linked data, building up data standards and tools allowing for new analyses to support development of policy, decision making and planning and provision of services.

Insights from this programme will provide policymakers with evidence and analyses to build understanding of major policy challenges such as Net Zero, homelessness and Levelling Up; and also the creation of a unique linked data resource that securely combines Census, healthcare and death registration data. This has already enabled fast production of essential insights into health inequalities to inform priorities for shielding and lockdown measures in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Working in partnership with colleagues across the Government Statistical Service we have ensured joined-up evidence and information on deaths, vaccinations and more. This evidence has informed the public through our Insights tool and contributed to discussions at the Scientific Advisory Group on Emergencies and the heart of Government.

• Early in the pandemic we launched the Business Impact of Coronavirus Survey (BICS) to provide critical evidence of the impact to businesses and inform some of the most important decisions by providing analyses on furloughing, international trade and business expectations over time.
• Our insights into Public Sector Finances data have kept pace with around 50 separate schemes to support the economy since the onset of the pandemic. This has included delivering fast-paced, conceptually ground-breaking work to measure changes in public sector output – particularly in education and healthcare.
• We have accelerated research and developed new analysis and methods to provide demographic insights, publishing an early indicator of the UK population along with modelled migration estimates.
• We delivered what has been a truly brilliant and successful Census. This followed an ambitious communications campaign which built on a virtual programme of engagement with local communities and the creation of an in-house digital cloud infrastructure, enabling almost 30 million households to access and respond to the Census online. To date our return rate is over 97% of household questionnaires.

We have also been ambitious in our approach to building cross government capability with our Data Science Campus exceeding the National Data Strategy’s ambitious target of training 500 analysts across the public sector in data science by 2021, with over 681 analysts now using novel data science tools and techniques. The Data Science Graduate Programme has enabled apprentices and graduates to play a vital role supporting coronavirus response work and delivering insights to decision-makers at the highest level.

We are leading Data Masterclasses for Senior Leaders in partnership with Government, as well as the Data Science Accelerator mentoring programme in partnership with the Government Digital Service, which has already supported over 250 data science projects across Government.

Like many other organisations, ONS has adapted to remote working at pace. As a result of the incredible delivery of our Digital Service and Technology and People and Business Services Directorates, ONS has moved from an organisation that was predominately site based, to one that supports remote working for over 5,500 staff. As we emerge from the pandemic, we will work in a more hybrid way to give colleagues flexibility to benefit from both working from home and working in the office.

Throughout this period, the employee diversity networks have continued to play a crucial role in building an inclusive culture within the organisation. I and the senior leadership team have participated in events, listening exercises and a mutual mentoring programme with employee network members. We have invested in the development of our employee network leaders to strengthen their capability and confidence in their role, and reviewed network sponsorship and governance arrangements to ensure they are sufficiently strong.

The 2020 People survey saw a six percentage point increase in our fair treatment and inclusion score to 85%, against a Civil Service Benchmark of 82% whilst the percentage of individuals who responded “yes” to experiencing workplace bullying and harassment has decreased by four percentage points from 12% in 2019 to 8% in 2020, which again was below the Civil Service Benchmark of 9%. This trend also continued with the number of those who experienced workplace discrimination decreasing four percentage points from 12% in 2019 to 8% in 2020 which is two percent below the Civil Service Benchmark. While this is good progress however, this is only the start of the journey and there is much more to do in the year ahead.

To ensure we serve those we seek to represent in October 2020 we launched the Inclusive Data Taskforce (IDTF), an independent group of senior academics and civil society leaders with wide ranging expertise across a range of equalities issues. They are considering how to radically improve the inclusivity of the UK’s data infrastructure to ensure our statistics reflect the experiences of everyone in our society. The IDTF will make recommendations in Summer 2021 and these will form the basis of a programme of work to be taken forward across the Government Statistical Service, led by ONS, to ensure inclusivity is built into everything we do.

We have continued to support countries internationally – including Kenya and Tanzania – to develop their own action plans to collect, analyse and disseminate more inclusive statistics.

More widely, there has been collaboration between statisticians in the ONS, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on a new vision to improve the coherence of income and earnings statistics and provide the best insights possible.

HMRC and the ONS developed their use of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) data so it now measures employment patterns two-three weeks after the relevant pay period. This monthly publication has massive value in near real time and is becoming the main measure for explaining employment patterns over these uncertain times.

The new local area child poverty statistics (CiLIF), jointly developed by DWP and HMRC replaced previous Official Statistics produced individually by both Departments.

We have been inclusive in the use of government microdata enabling accredited researchers access to a range of data through our Secure Research Service (SRS) as part of facilitating our understanding of COVID-19 as well as to help validate official statistics. In 2020 through investment from Administrative Data Research UK, a total of 19 new datasets were made available to third party researchers through the SRS, including eight focused on COVID-19. In all, these resulted in over 200 new analyses.

We have further broadened and supported access to data through our partnership with Health Data Research UK to help meet the Government’s National Core Study on Data and Connectivity.

We have also continued to unlock the potential of combining health and social care data, working closely with NHS Digital and other health bodies to create the Public Health Data Asset to create a uniquely powerful resource.

Our inclusive approach has stretched beyond the collection and analysis of data through to dissemination of data. As part of the Government led press briefings our teams have worked extensively with Cabinet Office to ensure data and analysis presented at national press conferences are accessible and comprehendible by all.

We continue to innovate in a bid to build sustainable methods for our vital statistics. This has seen the publication of work into experimental Gross Domestic Product (GDP) estimates using double deflation methods, which have been recognised as international best practice. We will be fully incorporating these world leading methods into our GDP estimates in September 2021.

Our key strategic programmes have delivered their planned objectives during the year significantly under budget. We have delivered all planned activity under the Census Data Collection Transformation Programme with a £31.9m saving against the budget for 2020/21. This achievement is made even more remarkable by virtue of the increased costs the programme has faced in keeping our significant field force of 20,000 (at its peak) safe as they have undertaken their duties. The COVID-19 Infection Survey (CIS) has been delivered as planned with a saving of circa £103 million against the original funding envelope. We have also finalised the Economic Statistics Transformation Programme during 2020/21 – delivering 94% of the planned benefits.

We have been rolling Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP) out across the Analysis Function, building capability through consultancy and mentoring, and supporting implementation with standards and guidance. Our RAP champions, are drawn from all major departments and professions, promoting good practice, running peer reviews, sharing what works, tackling blockers and building local capability. RAP deployments have achieved notable efficiencies and quality improvements in official statistics production in ONS and across government.

Work on the new cloud-based technology to support transformation continues and a user test/parallel run of Retail Sales Index using the Statistical Production Platform will start in Autumn 2021. This will be the first ONS survey using this infrastructure and will provide many of the building blocks needed for future transformation of business and potentially social surveys in the future.

Our surveys are now overwhelmingly completed online with 45% of business surveys fully online where users complete the surveys via their online accounts (1,080,011 online business surveys dispatched in 2020/21) as of end March 21.

We remain at the forefront of producing environmental statistics, such as measures of Natural Capital – including marine and woodland habitats, urban areas, and tourism and outdoor leisure – and engaging internationally to support development as well as work to go ‘beyond GDP’.

We continue to be a global leader in reporting on the Sustainable Development Goals Goals (SDG), covering topics from renewable energy, through food insecurity, to non-formal education participation. We have worked with the US on an open-source web platform to disseminate SDG statistics. Five more countries have started using this free-to-reuse platform over the past year, along with two cities and regions now publishing using it with two more in development – all with direct or indirect ONS support.