Blog

Harmonisation: The Beach Boys were onto something

If anyone knew the power of harmonisation, they did. Harmonisation is an often misunderstood and sometimes underappreciated idea. People often think it is just about getting everyone to use exactly the same definitions and concepts in their statistics. Some think it’s just about adding emotional impact to a melody. But these are just two aspects […]

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Synthetic data: innovation for public good

What is synthetic data, and how can it be used for public good? This was the question asked at a recent event at the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Synthetic data are artificially generated data that have the look and structure of real data, but do not contain any information on individuals. They also contain […]

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How to make the most of the online Code of Practice for Statistics

A few weeks ago, we celebrated the first birthday of the new Code of Practice for Statistics. You may have seen the blog post from John Pullinger, the National Statistician, or the one from Steve Ellerd-Elliott, the statistical Head of Profession at the Department for Work and Pensions. These talked about the new code and […]

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A free consultancy service for the Government Statistical Service

The Best Practice and Impact (BPI) division based at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), provides a range of services for the whole Government Statistical Service (GSS) to help improve official statistics. One service we offer is free consultancy. This can be tailored to any challenges or obstacles your department faces. Recently, the Quality Centre in […]

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Happy Birthday to the Code of Practice for Statistics!

The Code of Practice for Statistics is one year old today. This is real cause for celebration. Our new code reframes the debate about statistics. The statistician is not just a calculator. Rather, the statistician’s job is at the heart of democracy. As David Norgrove states in his introduction to the code: statistics are a […]

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The Code of Practice for Statistics turns one today

I am pleased to be saying happy first birthday to the Code of Practice for Statistics.  Over the last twelve months I have been involved in many different conversations about the use of statistics and I have found the new code to be really helpful in supporting these. As the statistical Head of Profession in […]

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Learning about Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP): two weeks with the GSS Good Practice Team

My name is Kin-Chung OW and I have just completed a two week secondment with the GSS Good Practice Team (GPT) from the Department for Education, working on a case study on Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP) in R. If you are not familiar with RAP, do not worry! You are not alone. This was an area […]

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Say what you see – a change in the way we write chart titles

In the Data Visualisation team at ONS, we have undertaken a project to review the way we write chart titles and we thought it would be good to share our experience in blog for the Government Statistical Service (GSS). What’s the idea? Currently, many of the chart titles used by the ONS and across the GSS are […]

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Getting the most from the nation’s statistics: the importance of standards

The objective of the GSS Data Project is to pioneer a better way for users to connect with government data. By improving findability, usability and interoperability we will increase the impact and reach of GSS statistical data. As reported in previous articles on the project, there are currently obstacles at each step of this process: […]

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GSS Christmas Stats Quiz!

Question 1 There were a total of 1,003 baby girls named Holly born in England and Wales in 2017, but how many of these were born in December? Question 2 How many real Christmas trees are bought in the UK each year (to the nearest million)? Question 3 Which area of the GSS website had […]

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