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| Public Administration select committee inquiry: Statistics and their use in government - study 4, communicating and publishing statistics |
Both the Royal Statistical Society and its Statistics User Forum made submissions to this study.
The submission by the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) focused on questions 1 to 3 of the Study. It endorses and supports the more extensive submission made by the Statistics User Forum.
Key points made in the RSS submission were:
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Communication has always been a weak area of UK official statistics. Since the introduction of the Code of Practice following the 2007 Act, and the first Assessment round of the UK Statistics Authority, more attention has been paid to it. Improvements have resulted but much more effort is needed. We are aware that the UKSA is undertaking some new initiatives in this area; the success of these and other measures need to be monitored carefully and further measures undertaken if required.
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In the submission the RSS focused on communications and presentations around statistical releases and other statistics outputs that already exist. A deeper communications challenge for the official statistics service is to present a coherent statistical picture of what is going on in areas where debate needs to concentrate on the issues rather than on explaining particular statistics. The debate on Scottish independence is an example where statistics needs to be brought together and well communicated in order to foster good debate. The old style Social Trends was a good example of when this was done.
The submission of the Statistics User Forum highlighted the following points as being of particular importance:
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The balance between resource expended on producing statistics and communicating/providing access to them is not yet right – more effort should go into the latter in order to maximise utility.
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Access arrangements should accommodate the requirements of the full range of levels of expertise among users.
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Users need a ‘one-stop shop’ to find out what official statistics are available on a particular topic.
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Effective user engagement should be a continuous dialogue, not just a series of one-off consultations.
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Explaining the strengths and weaknesses of particular statistics is an essential part of their communication to users, as is providing impartial interpretation of what underlies trends and comparisons.
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The publication strategy for official statistics is responding rather slowly and quite patchily across departments to the opportunities offered by the internet.
Download the RSS response (pdf format, 57kb)
Download the SUF response (pdf format, 66kb) |
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