UK Statistical System UK Statistics Authority Office for Statistics Regulation
Case studies Value

Rapidly setting up an automated data collection

This is a case study for V4: Innovation and improvement.

Prior to March 2020, the Department for Education (DfE) published termly and annual pupil absence data based on information provided to them through the school census, with a lag of around two terms. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, school attendance became a key societal issue and there was a strong need for real-time data at a national level.

Initially, DfE introduced a form for schools and colleges in England to complete manually each day. Whilst this approach provided DfE with the key information that was needed, it placed a high burden on schools and so DfE explored options for automating the collection.

DfE rapidly set up a new system which automatically collects daily attendance data from schools. This method of data collection was revolutionary for the department and its stakeholders and, because it is automated, it created no additional burden for schools. This was done on a voluntary basis to start with and reached a rate of 90% of schools choosing to participate, before the collection became mandatory at the start of the 2024/25 academic year.

The first outputs from these collections were published in September 2022 and have been published on a fortnightly basis to meet user needs, which considerably reduces the lag. The information is presented in a bulletin and a dashboard. The figures relate to the attendance of 5-to-15-year-old pupils in state-funded primary, secondary and special schools in England, and includes breakdowns for pupil groups.

This real-time automated collection has enabled policy makers in DfE to respond rapidly to arising issues, identify trends in attendance, and quickly understand and spread practice from areas showing improvements. For example, during the teacher strikes in 2023, DfE was able to produce rapid transparency data on the number of schools that were closed on strike days. Schools and local authorities are also able to use the attendance information operationally to more efficiently monitor absence by identifying pupils who need support earlier and benchmark themselves, saving time and enabling earlier intervention.

In 2023, these statistics won the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) Campion Award for Excellence in Official Statistics. The RSS noted that “the judges considered this to be an example of agile, useful data provision and an exemplar for other to follow. They were also impressed with the efforts made to ensure transparency so the findings could be communicated to a broad audience, as well as the use of new administrative data.”

Voluntary Application and 2024 Winner of the Award for Statistical Excellence: Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority Dashboard

2024 Winner of the Award for Statistical Excellence in Trustworthiness, Quality and Value for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority Dashboard

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) launched what is thought to be the first fertility dashboard of its kind in the world. The dashboard offers access to accurate and customisable UK-wide data dating back 30 years from the HFEA’s national fertility register in an accessible format on the HFEA website. The dashboard displays information on fertility treatments such as egg freezing and birth rates, patients, partners, donors and children born as a result of these treatments. This includes around 1.5 million IVF and 270,000 donor insemination treatments undertaken by around 665,000 patients since 1991.

Judges of the award praised this entry for the value delivered by HFEA’s work, as well as the response to user needs.

Applying the Code: Trustworthiness, Quality and Value (TQV)

The publication of the HFEA dashboard has produced Value by improving the ease of accessing our 30 years of national UK fertility register data. The dashboard enabled them to increase the breadth of data available on their website, in comparison to tables and graphs available in statistics publications, while presenting the information in a customisable and user-friendly format.

The aim of this dashboard was to make the data the HFEA holds more easily accessible and to reduce administrative work required to respond to data enquiries. The idea was based on efficiency and the benefits of improving data transparency. The dashboard was completed internally by a very small team within a year supported by a wide range of specialists within the HFEA and user testing, including initial training of the dashboard software, coming in underbudget. Following launch, around a third of data requests have been satisfied by referrals to the dashboard, with over 30,000 public views in the first two months, leading to improved team efficiency.

In demonstrating Trustworthiness, the HFEA provided caveats to data provided in the dashboard, particularly with success rates where preliminary figures are impacted by missing outcomes of treatments from clinics. The HFEA included a grey band in the figures to denote where data is preliminary and included caveats in tooltips to mark where data should be interpreted with caution, further information is available on the landing page and in the Quality and methodology report (Q&M). Planned updates and a change log are detailed on the landing page, as well as details on how patients cannot be identified from the data.

Quality of the data used from the HFEA register is ensured through validation exercises with clinics, inspections and audits. Production of data in the dashboard was quality assured by qualified staff through a multistep process documenting checks on each aspect of the data and presentation, including accessibility, scripts and verifying that data matches previously published sources. Details on limitations in the data and coherence with other publications are detailed in a Q&M report, and key limitations are additionally detailed in information icons in the dashboard.

Peter Thompson, Chief Executive of the HFEA, said:

“We’re delighted that the HFEA dashboard has won this year’s Trustworthiness, Quality & Value award. Our dashboard, which we believe to be the first of its kind in the world, is designed to provide impartial information in an easy-to-use format to help inform the many difficult decisions around fertility treatment. This award is a real tribute to the quality of work of our expert team at the HFEA and a recognition of the huge interest in UK fertility data. The HFEA will continue to build on the work recognised by this award and enable the public, clinicians and researchers to access the data we collect. Thank you to the Office for Statistics Regulation and the Royal Statistical Society for the award.”

Citations from users:

Prof Adam Balen, consultant in reproductive medicine at Leeds teaching hospitals NHS trust said:

“The new dashboard enables researchers to access data for study and patients to access information to better inform them on their fertility journey and thereby demystify some of the complexities behind the statistics of treatment outcomes.”

Other useful background

User testing was performed with patients, researchers, clinicians, staff and stakeholder organisations to ensure the dashboard could satisfy the various needs of key audiences. Improvements were made based on feedback including additions of information notes, FAQs on the landing page, and production of a two-minute animated explainer video.

The finalised dashboard also includes a link to a feedback form to ensure HFEA continue to receive input from users. Accessibility was reviewed by an external company, informing updates including improvements to keyboard-only navigation and developing dynamic alt-text.

The dashboard has been covered in numerous media publications with a focus on the dashboard’s user-friendly design and improved data transparency. Recent feedback from a patient referred to using the dashboard as a trusted source to check following meetings with clinics to see whether the rates they quoted were consistent with values displayed on HFEA’s dashboard.

Related Links

Providing clear insights through visible collaboration

This is a case study for Principle V3: Clarity and Insight

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an influential international OECD study. Conducted every three years since 2000, it measures 15-year-olds’ knowledge and skills in reading, science and mathematics and their ability to meet real life challenges. All four UK nations participated in PISA 2018.

PISA scores are of high political interest in Scotland as they allow comparisons of educational progress to be made internationally, as well as measuring progress over time It is also important data which helps to determine whether Scotland is on track to achieve its widely publicised aim of closing the poverty related attainment gap. Given a wide and varied audience and lots of political interest in these data, it is important that Scottish Government statisticians ensured the clear communication of the statistics key messages to support the accurate interpretation of the data.

New PISA outputs for Scotland

Scottish Government statisticians produced a performance report comparing Scotland’s performance against the OECD average in reading, science and maths. The main messages clearly showed Scotland’s performance in 2018 compared to previous years, and against the performance of other UK administrations. The report encouraged user feedback, including on the helpfulness of the information and the ability to contact the lead statistician. This promoted visibility of the statisticians and the continuous improvement in the quality and presentation of the statistics.

To reach a wider audience, Scottish Government also developed a new PISA dashboard which allows users to compare Scotland’s mean scores overall against other countries. This includes results broken down by student characteristics such as gender and immigration background of students and parents.

Developments to enhance clarity and insight

To support the development of reporting of PISA data, the Scottish Government consulted with a Research Advisory Group, comprised of representatives from across the education sector, and with researchers through the Academic Reference Group for the Research Strategy for Scottish Education. Collaborating with these experts helped them maximise the use of the data and to engage in outreach activities, including stressing the importance of the study and its objective within schools, to improve quality of the data collected. Some of this work identified the consideration of local level initiatives that could add further insight, for example, the linkage of the PISA data to National 4 and 5 exam results in Scotland.

The team also held a briefing session with UK journalists allowing for interactive exchange between the users and the statisticians and creating positive relationships. The team explained the appropriate interpretation of the statistics in order to help minimise the statistics being misused publicly. This led to the clarification of important topics such as the use of statistical significance in making comparisons between countries, the measure of social background used in PISA, and Scotland’s status as an ‘adjudicated region’ and what this entails. These were reflected in the media reporting of results.

Following publication, the team undertook a peer evaluation of the report against the Code of Practice for Statistics. This identified the need to clearly explain in plain English, technical terms that would be unfamiliar to a non-technical audience and some of the country specific detail. This has resulted in further clarity in the definitions used and in the explanations of the differences between Scotland and the other three nation’s statistics. In reporting PISA 2022 data, the Scottish Government plan to undertake engagement with users of the data to further improve clarity of the results, including more detail on the sample of schools and pupils achieved in the study.

This example demonstrates the proactive approach taken by Scottish Government statisticians to maximise the value and insight offered by the 2018 PISA statistics, and to support their accurate interpretation. This included engaging directly with a variety of experts, peers, the media and other user groups, making themselves visible and approachable throughout, developing new and accessible products, and explaining the statistics publicly to support their appropriate use.

Engaging users during a review of outputs

This is a case study for Principle V1: Relevance to users.

Ofsted undertook a review of its statistical publications to ensure that they continue to meet user needs. Ofsted engaged with internal and external users to understand more about their production processes and how they support internal and external uses of Ofsted statistics. The review considered a range of themes that are important to ensuring that statistics provide public value including:

  • The balance of official statistics, management information and statistical stories in meeting user needs
  • The expansion of the range of statistics and data it publishes to meet emerging user demands
  • Technical elements such as the platform that they are hosted on and the usefulness for its current tabulation tool versus APIs.

Ofsted collected feedback, which is summarised in a published report, from various user surveys and focus groups, and focussed on the following main questions:

  • Which of our statistical publications do you use?
  • How often do you use these publications?
  • For what purpose do you use these publications?
  • Do you read the commentary in the official statistics or mostly use the datasets?
  • How easy is it to find what you need, when you need it?
  • Which elements of the publications could we improve, and how?
  • Is there any other data that you think we should publish more frequently?

Ofsted reviewed the Code of Practice for Statistics and relevant legislation to be clear about what it must do, as a government organisation, and what it could or should do. It also engaged with the OSR domain team throughout to seek their input and keep them up to date with progress.

The evidence gathered from the review enabled Ofsted to create capacity to develop new statistical stories around its management information, through reducing the frequency of some official statistics products. It also helped Ofsted to take decisions on the future of its data exploration tool, Data View, and the platform on which its statistics are hosted.

The Director General of OSR wrote to Ofsted’s Head of Profession for Statistics to commend them on the review. He stated that he would encourage all statistics producers to undertake these types of activities, particularly at times of increased user demand and pressure on resources, to ensure that they continue to meet user needs.

Ofsted has started to implement changes based on the review. For example, it has published its first extended MI statistical commentary and reduced the frequency of one of its social care releases based on user need. It has also begun work to look at a DataView replacement, including a further user survey of future need. Ofsted’s post-inspection survey data, which was one of the identified areas of user interest, is also due for future publication.

This example highlights how Ofsted ensures that users of its statistics and data remain at the centre of statistical production, by openly engaging with users through various means during a period of review. This enables Ofsted to refresh its understanding of the main uses of its statistics, consider new user demands, and ensure that various uses of its statistics and data are supported.

Enhancing insights and coherence through collaboration

This is a case study for Principle V3: Clarity and Insight

While the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has responsibility for administering most benefits available in Great Britain, some benefits such as Tax Credits and Child Benefit are administered by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC).

In March 2020, DWP and HMRC produced a new joint-release for the first time on children in low-income families (CILIF) at a local area level. This release has replaced DWP’s Children in out-of-work benefit households and HMRC’s Personal tax credits: Children in low-income families local measure releases. The new statistics provide a more coherent picture of children in low-income families by drawing together administrative data from both producers to provide insights on benefits, tax credit and employment incomes within families from which local area estimates of children in low-income families are published. From 2021, this release is now solely produced by DWP.

DWP also produces Benefit Combination statistics, which offer a picture of the number of individuals claiming at least one benefit as well as the number of claimants for each combination of benefits. Currently users need to look at statistics produced by both the DWP and HMRC to gain a complete picture of how many families and households are claiming benefits.

DWP and HMRC have been working together to develop a joint publication which would bring together the Tax Credits and Child Benefit statistics with those produced by DWP. There have been challenges with delivering this work due to the difference in timing of the data feeds that DWP and HMRC work with. However, they are working towards producing annual statistics on the numbers of individuals claiming common combinations of benefits which DWP and HMRC are responsible for, on a common snapshot date.

The Heads of Profession for Statistics in DWP and HMRC have discussed this joint publication and are supportive of the work to develop the experimental Benefit Combinations statistics. In the interim, DWP has provided details in the DWP benefit statistics background note of benefits administered by HMRC and signposted to relevant HMRC statistics. While work is still ongoing to develop the joint publication, it is great to see the joint focus on aiding public understanding of benefit provision by developing these statistics.

This example shows how producers can work together across departmental boundaries to make greater use of existing data sources through linking, and the benefits this brings in terms improved insights and coherence across a statistical topic.

Innovating outputs to balance meeting needs with resources

This is a case study for V4: Innovation and improvement

The Welsh Government publishes a large number of statistical releases relating to the economy and labour market in Wales. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Welsh Government published Regional Economic and Labour Market Profiles for Wales, that brought together data on Welsh economic regions in one bulletin to enable comparisons to be made more easily.

The publication of the regional profiles was paused in 2020 due to resource and priority implications arising from Covid-19. The data were still made available elsewhere through existing dissemination tools including StatsWales and the Welsh Economy in Numbers dashboard, which presents key economy and labour market indicators for Wales with comparisons against the other UK countries and regions.

As part of its post-pandemic reprioritisation, the statistics team decided to review the future of the regional profiles. The team chose to engage with users to inform its prioritisation and to consider where best to allocate its resource to add most value. These development plans were transparently set out in a blog by the Chief Statistician in November 2021.

One option proposed by the statistics team was the possibility of stopping the regional profiles in favour of making incremental improvements to the dashboard. Making greater use of the existing dashboard is a positive example of how an innovative approach to dissemination can better meet users’ changing appetite for accessing and engaging with statistics, and reduce the resource spent producing long bulletins in pdf format.

In order to strengthen its relationship with users and to guide future developments of its economic statistics releases, the Welsh Government has recently established a Welsh Economic Statistics User Group, with the first meeting held in September 2022.

This example shows the value in producers continuing to review their existing statistical releases, to determine whether to continue or pause them based on balancing user needs with resource. It also shows how WG was transparent about these development activities, involving users to ensure the developments would meet their needs.

Using Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP) to improve statistics

This is case study for Principle V4: Innovation and improvement 

In 2021, OSR published its review on Reproducible Analytical Pipelines: Overcoming barriers to adoption. The Reproducible Analytical Pipeline, also referred to as RAP, is a set of principles and good practices for data analysis and presentation.  

RAP was developed by statistics producers in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Government Digital Service in 2017 as a solution to overcome several problems: in particular, time-consuming and error-prone manual processes, and an overreliance on spreadsheets and proprietary software for data storage, analysis and presentation. RAP combines modern statistical tools with software development good practice to carry out all the steps of statistical production, from input data to the final output, in a high quality, sustainable and transparent way.  

A minimum standard of RAP was developed by the Best Practice and Impact Team (now the Analysis Standards and Pipelines (ASAP) team) which are:  

  • Peer review to ensure the process is reproducible and identify improvements 
  • No or minimal manual interference, for example copy-paste, point-click or drag-drop steps – instead the process should be carried out using computer code which can be inspected by others 
  • Open-source programming languages, such as R or Python, for coding so that processes do not rely on proprietary software licenses and can be reproduced by statistics producers and users 
  • Version control software, such as Git, to guarantee an audit trail of changes made to code 
  • Publication of code, whenever possible, on code hosting platforms such as GitHub to improve transparency 
  • Well-commented code and embedded documentation to ensure the process can be understood and used by others 
  • Embedding of existing quality assurance practices in code, following guidance set by organisations and the GSS 

These fundamental principles that form the basis for the minimum standard can be further enhanced – for example by writing code in modular functions that allow for reuse, or introducing unit tests to ensure that code works as expected. It is also important to note that adopting RAP principles is not necessarily about incorporating all of the above – implementing just some of these principles will generate valuable improvements. 

RAP benefits – enabling innovation and improvement in official statistics – the ONS Centre for Crime and Justice (CCJ) 

The Nature of Crime data tables produced by the Centre for Crime and Justice (CCJ) at ONS previously relied heavily on Excel and SPSS. To reduce manual effort, save time and improve reproducibility, the CCJ replaced the existing process with R and python code and introduced Git for version control.  

Implementing RAP principles resulted in a significant reduction in the time taken to produce the statistics: what was originally three weeks’ worth of work for thirteen analysts was reduced to under an hours’ work for one. The CCJ were also able to create new analysis more quickly (as an example, it took an hour to add nine new tables to the python pipeline).  

With the time saved, the CCJ focused on providing more value for users – publishing historic time series, adding more measures and granularity to the tables, and developing its survey processes to provide new crime estimates about COVID-19. The team adapted the code for this project in order to automate the production of other statistics, such as those on violent crime. Overall, implementing RAP allowed the CCJ to continue to meet its existing output commitments whilst freeing up resources to focus on meeting user needs.  

The code for the crime tables is available on GitHub and the team has blogged about its RAP transformation.   

Planning how to implement RAP principles – Statistics producers should be empowered to develop RAPs themselves  

The process to achieve the above results involved demonstrating the efficiency and quality improvements to senior leaders at the CCJ who then established a team to deliver further RAP developments. With agreement from their line managers, the members of staff who were interested dedicated two days a week to this team. Support from the Deputy Director and other senior leaders was essential in protecting this time commitment and prioritising development work among competing priorities. This level of senior support also meant that analysts felt more able to get involved in the project in the first place. 

To support the development work, the Good Practice Team (GPT), now ASAP provided mentoring and training. This helped to embed RAP knowledge and skills within CCJ. Despite some initial apprehension about implementing RAP, the team members became confident in the new skills they developed and felt proud of their work and have now gone on to create and share their own crime_analysis package. The CCJ applied this approach to offering mentoring internally without the support of GPT and continued to focus on skills development across the division. To illustrate this, CCJ are now using a pair-programming technique to quality assure code and have created a bespoke RAP learning pathway specific to the data and table production processes for the team. 

This example shows how producers can enable innovation and improvement in official statistics when they are empowered to develop RAP in their areas. With commitment and support from senior managers to implement RAP principles, the team have been able to continue to meet its existing output commitments, while using its newly freed up resources to focus on meeting new user needs.

Adding value by making linked data on grades and university admissions in 2017-2020 available

This is a case study for Principle V5: Efficiency and proportionality. 

In 2021, Ofqual, the qualifications regulator in England, launched the GRading and Admissions Data for England (GRADE) data sharing project. This initiative makes available a number of linked datasets, covering exam results from 2017 to 2019 and grades from summer 2020.

In summer 2020, public examinations due to take place were cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The qualifications regulators and awarding bodies in the UK developed statistical models to calculate and award grades to ensure that students could continue to the next stage of their education. Calculated grades did not command public confidence and grades were ultimately awarded using the higher of the initial grade provided by schools and the calculated grade. The OSR report ‘Ensuring Statistical Models Command Public Confidence’ sets out the lessons that can be learnt from this for the wider statistical system.

There continued to be a great deal of interest in the models that were developed, and the impact of the grades awarded on admissions to university. The approach in 2020 had also shone a spotlight on the assessment and university admissions process more generally. In response, Ofqual, the qualifications regulator in England, launched the GRADE project to make the underlying data available to researchers to support research on the assessment and admissions systems. The aims of the project were to:

  • enable lessons to be learned from the awarding of grades for GCSEs and A levels in summer 2020
  • use data from the awarding of GCSEs and A levels in the period 2017 to 2020 to inform future education policy – particularly around the fairness of methods for measuring students’ attainment, and implications for university admissions processes
  • provide accredited researchers with access to data through the Office of National Statistics Secure Research Service to allow them to perform insightful, evaluative independent research

The project links Ofqual data on qualifications, UCAS data from the university application system and Department for Education (DfE) data on pupil characteristics and prior educational attainment, and was supported by resource from Ofsted. The following data from 2020 and the most recent pre-pandemic years (2017-2019) were made available:

  • Ofqual – data on GCSE and A level examinations and qualifications collected from awarding organisations
  • DfE – extracts of the National Pupil Database (NPD) for GCSE and A level students
  • UCAS – records from the university application process

The data was de-identified and pseudonymised so that the necessary data protection safeguards are in place to protect the rights of individual students. Alongside accompanying data specifications, Ofqual published a privacy notice and engaged in a range of communication and engagement activities to inform students of the project and of their rights. Work was undertaken to enable independent research to be carried out and Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) made funding available via ADR UK fellowships.

In December 2021, OSR wrote to the chief regulator at Ofqual, and the heads of the other organisations involved, to congratulate them on making the GRADE data available. The development and sharing of this linked dataset demonstrated a commitment to transparency in relation to the awarding of grades, and willingness to gain insights on the impact on further education, higher education and employment and from the functioning of the system in years when exams are available.

This example shows how Ofqual has supported public understanding of important issues by increasing opportunities for the sharing, linkage, and cross-analysis of prominent administrative data sources, by making them available to be reused for independent analysis.

Providing new statistical insights during the pandemic

This is a case study for Principle V3: Clarity and Insight.

The Government Statistical Service (GSS) has been proactively responding to address user needs for both new data and enhanced insight during the pandemic. For example, HMRC statisticians have actively sought to answer society’s key questions about economic changes in a timely way through the preparation, production, and publication of new statistics on its Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and its Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS). And the ONS has adapted its Opinion and Lifestyles Survey (OPN) to provide new insights on the social aspects of the pandemic, through its Coronavirus and the Social Impacts on Great Britain. 

Economic insights from HMRC’s worker support schemes  

The CJRS is a scheme for employers who can claim support with wage costs for employees put on furlough during the pandemic, while the SEISS supports self-employed individuals. Before the statistics were developed, HMRC started Tweeting daily information on both schemes in response to public requests for information. Simultaneously, HMRC quickly developed Experimental Official Statistics, to transparently provide useful information on the status of the schemes. 

The new CJRS statistics include a headline time series and detailed statistics on jobs furloughed at the end of each month, with analysis by employer size and sector. Also covered is analysis of jobs furloughed by geography, employees’ age and gender and breakdowns by type of furlough (full and flexible). To produce the statistics, HMRC combined data from CJRS claims with data from their Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) system. HMRC has further developed the statistics in response to user feedback and most recently added detailed industry breakdowns and figures for the total number of jobs put on furlough at any time since the start of the scheme. 

HMRC’s February 2021 SEISS publication covers the third SEISS grant which was awarded by HMRC up to December 31, 2020. The information presented includes age of claimant; gender; sector of self-employment activity; and geography, with further breakdowns providing additional insights. 

HMRC are open with users about aspects of uncertainty in estimates labelling the statistics and analysis by labelling them with a frank summary to ensure appropriate interpretations by users. The statistics are released in a timely manner at an interval that meets user needs, for both demographic and geographical breakdowns.  

Social insights from the Opinions and Lifestyles Survey (OPN) 

The OPN previously operated as a monthly telephone and online survey of British households, providing timely and relevant insights to its users. During the pandemic, it became an important source of information for understanding the social impact of the pandemic.  

From 20 March 2020, the OPN became weekly and each week, some of the survey’s questions were changed to reflect changing circumstances and priorities. Since then, estimates measuring the impact of the pandemic on people, households and communities in Great Britain have been published on a weekly basis.  

With a user group of a wide range of government departments, academics and charities providing input into the questions asked, the survey has been used to rapidly and flexibly provide information on areas of user interest such as: people’s compliance with government measures to stop the spread of COVID-19; people’s experiences of home-schooling and working from home; as well as people’s well-being and attitudes towards vaccination as the pandemic has progressed.  

OPN summary results are presented with breakdowns by age, sex, region and country, and the published data sets include confidence intervals to enable their appropriate interpretation. 

Summary  

These examples demonstrate how the GSS is responding to the need for new statistics to enhance public insight and understanding around the economic and social aspects of the pandemic. HMRC have shown an understanding of the needs of different types of users, and have brought clarity and insight to the extent of the UK government’s economic response in support of workers during the pandemic. And by adapting the Opinion and Lifestyles Survey to focus on the social impacts of coronavirus, ONS has also proactively responded to the changing data needs of users and helped to provide robust and timely insights into public’s attitudes around coronavirus and government responses to it. 

Improving the discoverability of UK official statistics

This is a case study for Principle V2: Accessibility

The UK’s diffuse statistical landscape

There are many public bodies that produce official statistics across the GSS. It is the totality of these statistical families that make up the UK’s statistical landscape. The data provided by these statistics helps to support the day-to-day running of government by:

  • Providing published evidence to help assess the impact of government policies and legislation and to evaluate outcomes
  • Helping to refine the delivery of front-line services by assessing the effectiveness of operations and identifying areas in need of improvement.

However, because the publication model for the UK’s statistical landscape is widely diffused, users must often search a large number of official websites to find the data they want. Many users are also at a disadvantage, if they are not experienced in navigating the UK’s statistical landscape.

The GSS Interactive Tools

The web-based GSS Interactive Tools allow users to search, filter, and explore official statistics from a single location, across a range of thematic areas. The tools achieve this by linking users to statistics of interest, while also allowing them to filter by numerous categories, including:

  • Statistical theme
  • Country or countries of interest
  • Organisation that produces the statistics
  • Geographic scales – from country-wide level, down in some cases, to scales smaller than local authority level
  • Frequency of publication – such as one off (ad hoc) publications, once a decade censuses, or weekly statistics
  • Number of years the statistics cover

The GSS Interactive Tools have been designed to work with common assistive technologies, such as screen readers, and adhere to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines “AAA” ratings (gold standard). The tools are also mobile and tablet native and the subject areas are regularly updated based on user needs (i.e. weekly for health statistics to quarterly for housing statistics), to ensure that content remains relevant.

Making official statistics more accessible

In November 2017, OSR published a systemic review of housing and planning statistics. The review showed that the diffuse nature of this particular landscape acted as a barrier to accessing data. This meant that UK housing and planning statistics, as a whole, fell short of the Code’s Accessibility principle.

In response, GSS members formed a Housing and Planning Statistics Working Group, including colleagues from many government departments and the Devolved Administrations. To improve the accessibility of official statistics, the group  worked to provide proper signposting for users and potential users. This led to the development and launch of the GSS Interactive Tools for housing and planning statistics in September 2019.

The success of the tools, coupled with their reproducible nature, has since led to the inclusion of other statistical areas. The tools now include hundreds of statistical releases on the topics of:

This increased thematic coverage and successful engagement with users through social media and blogs, has driven continued growth in the number of users regularly using the tools.

Feedback

Feedback from users and stakeholders has been very positive and continues to come from a wide range of sectors, including:

  • Businesses
  • Charities
  • Universities
  • Local and national governments

The usefulness of a single access point for statistics is a common theme within the feedback. User-research continues to help refine the accessibility, content, and functionality of the tools. This ensures that the information provided is clear, concise, and does not rely on expert knowledge. This helps to further increase the accessibility of UK statistics to a broader range of potential users. These improvements have, in part, led to the nomination of the tools for a GSS Excellence Award.

OSR has also highlighted the positive impact that the tools have had on the accessibility of official statistics, via its:

Summary

The GSS Interactive Tools showcase how following accessibility best practice increases the value of official statistics and data, for users and potential users. Built to meet a broad range of needs, the tools accommodate people with different levels of subject knowledge and different accessibility requirements. This means that the burden of finding the information users need is less when using the tools. This helps to open up official statistics to a greater number of people who would have otherwise not have accessed them, including users of screen readers and other assistive technologies.