This is a case study for Principle V4: Innovation and improvement.
The Reproducible Analytical Pipeline (RAP) is an innovation initiated by the Government Digital Service (GDS) that combines techniques from academic research and software development. It aims to automate certain statistical production and publication processes – specifically, the narrative, highlights, graphs and tables. Tailor made functions work raw data up into a statistical release, freeing up resource for further analysis. The benefits of RAP are laid out in the link above, but include:
- Auditability – the RAP method provides a permanent record of the process used to create the report, moreover, using Git for version control producers have access to all previous iterations of the code. This aids transparency, and the process itself can easily be published
- Speed – it is quick and easy to update or reproduce the report, producers can implement small changes across multiple outputs simultaneously. The statistician, now free from doing repetitive tasks, has more time to exercise their analytical skills
- Quality – Producers can build automated validation into the pipeline and produce a validation report, which can be continually augmented. Statisticians can therefore perform more robust quality assurance than would be possible by hand in the timeframe from receiving data to publication.
- Knowledge transfer – all the information about how the report is produced is embedded in the code and documentation, making handover simple
- Upskill – RAP is an opportunity to upskill individuals by giving them the opportunity to learn new skills or develop existing ones. This also upskills teams by making use of underused coding skills that may exist within their resource; coding skills are becoming ubiquitous nowadays with many STEM subject students learning to code at university
RAP therefore enables departments to develop and share high-quality reusable components of their statistics processes. This ‘reusability’ enables increased collaboration, greater consistency and quality across government, and reduced duplication of effort.
In June 2018, the Department for Transport (DfT) published its RAP debut with the automation of the Search and Rescue Helicopter (SARH) statistical tables. This was closely followed by the publication of Quarterly traffic estimates (TRA25) produced by DfT’s first bespoke Road Traffic pipeline R package. RAP methods are now being adopted across the department, with other teams building on the code already written for these reports. DfT have begun a dedicated RAP User Group to act as a support network for colleagues interested in RAPping.
DfT’s RAP successes have benefited from the early work and community code sharing approach of other departments, including:
- Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport first published statistics using a custom-made R package, eesectors, in late 2016, with the code itself made freely available on GitHub.
- Department for Education first published automated statistical tables of initial teacher training census data in November 2016, followed by the automated statistical report of pupil absence in schools in May 2017. DfE are now in the process of rolling out the RAP approach across their statistics publications
- Ministry of Justice, as well as automating their own reports, have made a huge contribution with the development of the R package xltabr which can be used by RAPpers to easily format tables to meet presentation standards. Xtabr has also been made available to all on the Comprehensive R Archive Network.
The incorporation of data science coding skills with the traditional statistical production process, coupled with an online code sharing approach lends itself to increased collaboration, improved efficiency, and creates opportunities for government statisticians to provide further insights into their data.