Understanding our future population: Why projections are not predictions

Categories: Census, International, migration, Office for National Statistics, ONS, Population
Image of people

There are many reasons for wanting to know the size of the future population of the UK. How many school places will we need? How many hospitals? How many people will claim a State Pension? But looking into the future is challenging. As James Robards explains, our population projections take into account current and past trends, and as those patterns change, we adjust our projections accordingly.

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A voice for UK businesses – a milestone for our business insights survey

Categories: Business, Coronavirus, Data, Economy, Office for National Statistics, Public Policy
Image of a person inputting data

Back in March 2020, life changed very suddenly as COVID-19 struck. In the first days of lockdown the ONS set up what it thought would be a temporary rapid business survey to assess how the pandemic was impacting UK businesses. Gemma Rabaiotti explains how four years and 100 waves of responses later, the Business Impact of Coronavirus survey– now renamed the Business Insights and Conditions survey – (BICS) has cemented its place as a timely and vital voice on the challenges facing businesses today.

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Time Well Spent: How the ONS is improving the measurement of public service productivity

Categories: ONS
Children in a classroom

The ONS is launching a new pilot ‘time-use survey’ for the public sector, which will give us much more detailed information than was previously available about how workers in the public sector spend their time, including travel, administration and delivering services directly. Ellys Monahan tells us what the survey is designed to show and why we need the information. 

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PODCAST: Year in Review 2023

Categories: Census, Data, Economy, Integrated Data Service, Office for National Statistics, Population, UK Statistics Authority

It has been a radical and transformative 2023 for the Office for National Statistics, with work underway to future-proof its figures in a number of its outputs. National Statistician, Sir Ian Diamond, joins podcast host Miles Fletcher for the latest episode of Statistically Speaking, to look back over the past 12 months and discuss why change was needed. 

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Working together to improve health and social care statistics

Categories: Coronavirus, Health, Office for National Statistics, Office for Statistics Regulation, Population, Research, Wellbeing
Baby visits doctor

The COVID-19 pandemic placed health and social care statistics into the headlines, encompassing a wide range of vital topics such as mortality, vaccine uptake, mental health and other health impacts. Nearly four years on from the first news reports of the ‘coronavirus’, the interest in health data and statistics has continued to grow. Julie Stanborough explains how we are working collaboratively with other data producers to improve health and social care statistics, and how you can have your say.

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