1. Office for National Statistics 2016/17 to 2019/20
Ben Whitestone
Head of Integrated Planning
Office for National Statistics
January 2016

2. Overview What… The 2015 Spending Review for ONS
ONS Transformation Plans
Current Public Consultation
Why…
Engagement with users
Mutual understanding
Feedback

3. Health Warnings ONS not GSS May not have all the answers
Plans are being developed and will change
Consultation still open and decisions not yet made

4. Spending Review 2015 – Recycle to invest

5. Ramping up for the census

6. Why transform Maintain and Improve Outputs Policy and Decision Making
Information
Processes
People
Products/Services
Customers
Technology
Organisation
Maintain and Improve Outputs
Policy and Decision Making
Data Revolution
= Expectations and Opportunities
Resilience and High Performance
systems, processes, skills and capability
Channels
Communicate Better
Web and Data Access

7. ONS Transformation Digital Transformation
(Website, System Development, Resilience, Agile)
Data Collection Transformation
(Online, Admin Data, Survey Rationalisation, Field Force Model)
Census Transformation
(Modern, Online, Admin Data)
Economic Statistics Development
(Legislative Compliance, Flow of Funds, Productivity, Economic Capability)
Other projects
(Migration, Crime, Devolution)
+ workforce transformation

8. 2015/16 2020/21 Workforce Digital/ IT Data Collection Analytical Staff
Transactional
Staff
Transactional
Staff
Digital/ IT
Data Collection

9. Consultation on changes to ONS Products
We have to reduce the costs of our core operations to allow for transformation – we see this as an existential issue for ONS. Changes outlined in the consultation represent only around 20% of the savings we need for next year. Majority of the savings will come from back office functions, process improvement and benefits from transformation.

10. 1. Changes to publication model
Replace some single source statistical bulletins with key bullets or shorter summary bulletins alongside the data tables and metadata. This means that we will provide less analysis around the statistics in some cases, but all of the same data, potentially quicker.

11. 2. Changes to surveys Social Surveys: Business Surveys
Wealth and Assets (sample size)
International Passenger Survey (ports and shifts)
Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (stop)
Business Surveys
Stop: Occupational Pensions Scheme Survey, Quarterly Stocks Survey
Greater use of admin data: Retail Sales Inquiry (RSI), Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE), Monthly Business Survey (MBS)
Reduce sample sizes and/or response rates for a number of surveys.
Technical changes: validation rules and selective editing, rebalance the number of short and long questionnaires, the amount of data collected for PRODCOM.

12. 3. Changes to frequency
Would a reduction in the frequency of national and sub-national population projections cause a difficulty for your Department or organisation?
Based on your understanding of the ONS statistics that you use, what would the impact be if we published some of our statistics less frequently?

13. 4. Stopping lower value work
We wish to regularly review our portfolio of statistics and analysis to ensure that they meet your needs and continue to provide the value we and you would expect. Are our non-statutory outputs essential, used widely and high impact?

14. Questions?