By Paul Allin, RSS Honorary Officer for Public Statistics, and Ken Roy, member of the RSS Public Statistics Advisory Group
Official statistics are one of the UK’s great public assets. They assist government, business and citizens in understanding a changing world, making informed decisions and holding power to account. Clearly, a key role of official statistics is to be fit for purpose to inform decisions by central government – but it is also vital that they serve the needs of wider society.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the wider Government Statistical Service (GSS) can be very good at convening users and listening to them – the UK Statistics Assembly held in January 2025 was a particularly welcome landmark event. However, as recognised in the Lievesley Review, users outside government (and the Bank of England) feel ‘that there is too little transparency in the way the statistical agenda is set, and are unclear how they might get their needs to be recognised’.
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) believes it’s time to strengthen the relationship between producers and users. Our new position paper, ‘UK Official Statistics – a New Partnership Between Producers and Users’, sets out practical proposals to make user engagement a central part of how official statistics is designed, delivered and improved.
While progress has been made, it remains important that we develop a consistent and transparent way for users to feed into decisions about priorities, content or the communication of official statistics. The aim is for much more of a culture of co-design between producers and users.
The RSS therefore proposes a renewed approach: one that is built on partnership, openness and responsiveness. We do not expect every user need to be catered to – but it is important that needs are logged and responded to transparently.
Consequently, we are delighted to see the renewed focus on user engagement in the UK Statistics Authority statement of strategic priorities and in the recently published UK Code of Practice for Statistics. Building on these commitments, we wanted to offer some tangible proposals for the ways in which these high-level commitments can be implemented.
Priorities for better engagement
Our paper proposes five priority areas for action:
1. User engagement must be mainstreamed
The system should support every producer in viewing engagement as a core part of their job. Each statistical team should know who their users are, understand how their statistics are used and reach out to potential new audiences. This is an investment — improving quality, relevance and trust. We are delighted to see the requirement captured in the new Code of Practice for Statistics that:
'Producers must put users at the centre of decision making about the statistics, listening to and acting on feedback, and be transparent about statistical planning.'
2. Build a clear and accessible engagement infrastructure
At present, users have to navigate a maze of committees, forums and networks. We propose a simple, visible framework — effectively a ‘map’ — that shows where people can engage on different topics. The National Statistician’s Expert User Advisory Committee (NSEUAC) could sit at the centre, supported by themed user groups for areas such as health, population and inflation. Links to these should be clearly signposted from the ONS website and in all statistical releases.
3. Increase transparency about what’s being produced — and what’s not
We recommend a regularly published programme of official statistics, setting out what will be delivered. Alongside this should sit a ‘waiting list’ of requested statistics or data improvements, so users can see what’s been asked for and why. This visibility of unmet needs would help align longer term priorities and reduce user frustration.
4. Integrate the feedback loops
The UK’s official statistics portfolio needs to be dynamic to help us understand and respond to a changing world. This means that we will need regular reviews of topic areas, jointly led by producers and users, to identify strengths, weaknesses and gaps. There is already a commitment that the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority will give an annual public lecture setting out the progress of the statistical system. This should be complemented and informed by an annual independent assessment from NSEUAC about the extent to which the system is meeting user needs.
5. Engage citizens directly
Most current engagement focuses on organisations and institutions, but ordinary citizens also have a critical stake in official statistics. The RSS supports exploring the use of citizen assemblies or similar forums to understand what the public wants measured and how best to communicate statistics to this audience.
Moving forward
These ideas are designed to be practical, not bureaucratic. They build on good practice already seen in parts of the system and on the shared desire for official statistics that are trusted, relevant and widely used. They should help statistical producers by giving them a clear process to engage with users and a way to assure users that their contributions have been properly accounted for.
If adopted, they would help move the UK towards a system with collaboration at its core — one in which producers and users work together to identify priorities, share expertise and ensure that statistics truly serve the public good.
You can read the full position paper here.