For the past four months the ONS has been running a consultation on the future of population and migration statistics. We’ve been asking users of our statistics what they want in a transformed system and whether our proposals meet their needs. With one week to go, Jen Woolford explains why it’s vital everyone has their say.
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Good data played a key part in informing the UK response to the Coronavirus pandemic. But what lessons can be learned and how can we best prepare not only ourselves, but the rest of the world if, and when, another pandemic hits? Emma Rourke explains how a global collaboration, led by the UK’s Office for National Statistics and funded by Wellcome, is growing to create the Pandemic Preparedness Toolkit which could make a valuable contribution to the next global pandemic response.
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One of our key roles as statisticians is to paint a picture of society according to how people describe themselves. Our responsibility is to keep pace with how society defines itself and to make our statistics available as promptly as possible. Data from Census 2021 are so rich and complex that the publication of the first results is far from the end of our work. Sometimes we can unearth unexpected patterns as we undertake further analysis and gather feedback from users about their findings. Emma Rourke explains what we know about census gender identity data so far.
Read more on Census 2021 gender identity estimates: progress and next steps
Measuring the contribution of the environment to the economy – and the impact of economic activity on the environment – have become a significant part of the ONS’s work. Our latest release shows how UK greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing again. In this post Sophie Barrand and Natasha Bird introduce some of our key environmental metrics and what those have to say about climate change.
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Facts and figures are coming at us fast every day, but ‘what’ or ‘who’ to trust: mainstream media, public figures and national institutions, or those random strangers in our social media feeds? In the latest episode of Statistically Speaking we focus on the use of data in public discussion and debate.
Read more on Communicating Statistics: Crossing the minefields of misinformation