An independent report has been published on the inaugural Statistics Assembly – which we were pleased to hold in partnership with the UK Statistics Authority. We welcome this report, written by former RSS president, David Hand, as chair of the National Statistician’s Expert User Advisory Committee, and we welcome the Authority’s response.
The RSS advocates for a public statistics approach to government statistics. This means capitalising on the increasing amounts of data available and looking beyond official statistics to help answer society’s most important questions through an ambitious focus on user needs. Part of what we want to see is a greater collaboration between statistics producers and users in designing and publishing a portfolio of outputs. The Statistics Assembly has the potential to deliver this shift in how producers of statistics engage with users, recognising that the official statistics system is at the core of our vision for more public statistics.
David Hand’s report on the Assembly summarises the main themes to emerge from the event. It makes a series of recommendations for future iterations of the Statistics Assembly, high-level recommendations for the statistical system as well as specific recommendations for the areas of statistics that were discussed. It is a rich source of proposals for strengthening the UK’s statistical system, highlighting the level of unmet needs from users, and the RSS is committed to continued engagement with the UK Statistics Authority to support progress in as many areas as possible.
The report identifies four high-level priorities for the UK Statistics Authority:
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Re-invigorate sustained and effective user engagement.
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Develop a portfolio of official and unofficial sources, along with use of appropriate methodologies, to ensure user needs for more granular statistics are met.
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Commit to, and invest in, a significant scaling up in the use of administrative data in the portfolio of sources of official statistics, alongside and integrated with surveys, censuses and other types of data.
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Recognise the need for UK-wide statistics and advocate for and support harmonised data where desirable.
These priorities align with the central recommendations of our vision for public statistics, and we welcome the Authority’s commitment to focus on these areas. The RSS is ready to support them in taking forward the immediate actions proposed.
We look forward to seeing the Authority’s full response to the report’s recommendations in due course and will continue to work with them to build on the success of this event.