Two years ago I was nearly killed in a car crash. It was through no fault of my own – a bus decided to pick a fight with my car. This left me with a spine broken in several places and severe spinal damage which will stay with me for life. Along with the health […]
Learn moreSince starting in Migration and Borders Analysis (MBA), I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on my own status as an immigrant. At the MBA awayday at the Migration Museum in Lambeth, we were urged to think about migration stories. It surprised me that I’ve never even considered mine! So, as any good social […]
Learn moreHi, my name is Simon Skerritt. I work in the Analysis Function in the Civil Service and I am proud to be part of the Analysis Function Data and Insight (D&I) Group. In 2017, I founded the Civil Service Hearing and Visual Disability Networks, which have become sub networks of the Civil Service Disability Network […]
Learn moreWhy did I participate? When I learnt about this two-week secondment opportunity with the BPI team around the corner (literally!), I wanted to join almost instantly. Before this experience, I had a vague idea of the division’s functions and its place in the organisational structure at the Office for National Statistics. I decided that a […]
Learn moreI was first introduced to the idea of secondments with the Best Practice and Impact (BPI) team during my GSS Induction training, and I was immediately intrigued. I had no experience of a stats team who didn’t produce any statistical releases, and I was determined to find out how that worked. I quickly realised […]
Learn moreA cross government initiative led by the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) has launched a Data Catalogue. This covers a wide range of data sources related to EU exit such as trade, tariffs, population and mobility. The aim of the catalogue is to ensure that data sources are used effectively and consistently across […]
Learn moreAs producers of statistics, users should be central to everything we do. Whether they’re policymakers, academic researchers or simply inquiring citizens, we need to make sure that our statistics are relevant to user needs. This isn’t always easy, though. We often find ourselves caught on a treadmill of producing the same outputs to the same […]
Learn moreOne 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 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 more