One of my favourite features of the statistical fast stream is the opportunity for a six-month secondment outside the Civil Service. My recent experience in the West of England Combined Authority exposed me to local government, policy development, and a whole new range of colleagues. While there I built my experience in policy, learned how […]
Learn moreA number on its own without context is not useful. Without an understanding of what it is measuring it can’t be used in a meaningful way. Add context by describing what it measures and that data point may become useful for answering a specific thing. Include it in a table with other numbers, and the […]
Learn moreWe now live in a world awash with data and people can look up almost anything they want. But what gives “official” data its unique competitive edge? The data we produce at Office for National Statistics (ONS) is underpinned by the Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics and the UK’s Code of Practice for Statistics. This […]
Learn moreThe Connected Open Government Statistics (COGS) project will do some amazing things to bring data together from across the GSS. But the project doesn’t have magical fairies that sprinkle Python dust over all the spreadsheets to transform them into Tidy Data. To take our existing outputs and make them 5* Linked Open Data takes a […]
Learn moreThe Connected Open Government Statistics (COGS), GSS Data project in old money, has started its new ‘Journey’ this month and we wanted to update on what has happened and what we are doing over the next few months. We fought hard over the Summer to ensure the project continues and, although it was tough we’ve […]
Learn moreNovel changes to the Presentation and Dissemination Committee's 'What's New' report are described by a cross-departmental working group.
Learn moreThe awards ceremony for the first annual GSS awards took place at the GSS conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday 1 October. Presented by Deputy National Statistician Iain Bell, the awards celebrated the excellent work being done across the GSS. This was the first GSS conference held in Scotland and to celebrate attendees were led into […]
Learn moreMathematical work can sometimes seem detached from the real world. The abstractness of statistics and datasets often mask the ways in which they can eventually be used – and misused. But for many of us, the maths that we do is not just for fun; we are producing real results, that will be used by […]
Learn moreHere at Mango we are very much looking forward to our involvement in the upcoming GSS conference. Our decision to take part as the main sponsor follows our long involvement in government statistics, working closely with government departments to make sure the latest in technology and approaches can be used in what is critical work […]
Learn moreHave you ever done some work or spent time trying to fix a problem, only to find later that someone else already had a solution? Or spoken to someone about something you thought they wouldn’t know about, but happened to have some advice or a useful contact to help you? The Government Statistical Service (GSS) […]
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