Guest blog by David Caplan, RSS Honorary Officer for Public Statistics
Population statistics are one of the key outputs of the statistical system. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has faced considerable challenges in producing reliable and trusted statistics. Meeting these challenges requires producers, users and other experts to work together.
User engagement, modernising methods and communicating uncertainty
As part of an ongoing programme of engagement between the RSS, Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), members across the statistical community have been coming together to discuss key challenges facing the UK’s statistical system. As part of this, we held a roundtable on population statistics earlier this year, to bring the expertise of RSS members to bear on the challenges faced by statistics producers.
The roundtable focused on how the UK’s population statistics system can continue to meet users’ needs in a changing data landscape. The recommendations from the roundtable centred on three broad themes – strengthening user engagement, modernising questionnaires and methods, and communicating uncertainty and revisions clearly. Last month, I met with the ONS and RSS colleagues to reflect on the progress made over the past year and discuss how these recommendations have influenced their work.
The impact of our recommendations
The ONS spoke positively about the value of the roundtable and the opportunity to hear perspectives from outside the organisation. Bringing together experts with different experiences helped to challenge assumptions, validate areas of ongoing work and stimulate new thinking.
One of the main themes of our conversation was user engagement. The ONS shared examples of the work they have been doing to better understand and respond to the needs of different user groups, while also recognising that there is more to do to reach voices that remain underrepresented. It was particularly encouraging to hear how thinking about 2031 census outputs is being shaped by the way people increasingly access and use data, including through emerging technologies such as AI.
We also discussed how uncertainty is communicated in population statistics. Communicating uncertainty is not simply about explaining statistical methods. It is about enabling users to make informed judgements about the reliability and appropriate use of statistics. The ONS highlighted efforts to help users better understand both the strengths and limitations of population estimates, including through supporting materials that accompany statistical releases. Alongside technical measures such as confidence intervals, there was recognition of the importance of clear, accessible explanations that help a wider range of users understand what uncertainty means in practice.
An ongoing dialogue
The real test of engagement is whether it helps improve the statistics on which people depend. Our discussions suggest that the roundtable has made a useful contribution, but this needs to be an ongoing process - maintaining an open, iterative dialogue between producers and users of statistics. It was encouraging to hear how the discussions from last year’s roundtable continue to inform thinking across a range of areas. The population statistics team are keen to continue the conversation with RSS members, and to that end, we’re planning another roundtable to discuss developments at the start of 2027.