Use Made of Official Statistics Use Made of Official Statistics: stage 1 Rosalyn Harper Royal Statistical Society 18 January 2007

Use Made of Official Statistics Research Outline Objective - examine extent to which official statistics influence decision making in public and private organisations Methods - literature review and interviews with users in public and private organisations First in a two stage project

Use Made of Official Statistics Findings Overview: users experiences Who are the users of Official Statistics? What are Official Statistics used for? What are the needs of users?

Use Made of Official Statistics Who are the users of Official Statistics? Majority worked in an analytical role providing insights into specific areas Expertise and confidence in using data sources/ statistics varied greatly Implications for data provision

Use Made of Official Statistics What are Official Statistics used for? Official Statistics used extensively, considered essential to good decision making …there wont be a data series the ONS produce that we wont have looked at and/or used regularly. Everything – you name it, we will scour everything – its our job to gain insight on the economy and then apply it to our business…

Use Made of Official Statistics What are Official Statistics used for? Census data …at the very local level, we can use it to understand business performance…we would understand better if a branch isnt selling mortgages in a predominately elderly catchment, so we would hopefully target savers in that catchment…

Use Made of Official Statistics What are Official Statistics used for? National survey data Administrative data

Crime Statistics: User Perspectives Monitoring Targeting Lobbying Internal research Resource allocation Planning services Bidding for funds Policy development Some examples of how used Use Made of Official Statistics

USERS DATA SOURCE USES Survey data Census Administrative data Resource allocation Policy development Lobbying Bidding Marketing Evaluation Targeting Planning Services Marketing Monitoring Internal Research Local Authorities Small Retailers Financial Services Statistics User Groups Trade Unions Lobby Groups Insurance Industry Tourism & Utilities Leisure Environmental Groups Market Research Supermarkets Charities

Use Made of Official Statistics Users Needs: timeliness …timeliness is an issue because Government has a bit of an obsession with being as close to 100% accurate as you could possibly be. The hard reality is its a trade off between speed and accuracy and from a commercial perspective there is probably too much accuracy and not enough speed. I accept that accuracys a good thing – but not at any cost…

Use Made of Official Statistics Users Needs: accessibility Simplify the data structure Use common keys like ONS OAC

Use Made of Official Statistics Users Needs: better planning Government set targets but perception of little planning on how to measure or collect the data …you have your little old lady who sits in the cold. Well, we dont know if shes little, we dont know shes old, we dont know shes poor and we don't know shes sitting in the cold, so how do we know that we should be targeting her…

Use Made of Official Statistics Next steps Larger study of use made underway (MORI) Publication of Commission Report Spring 2007 Investigation of the public value of official statistics

Use Made of Official Statistics Separate research project on Accessibility Objectives - consider the accessibility of online official statistics, including retrievability, quality, format and the needs of users. Methods - mystery shopper approach, review of policies

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