This article relies too much on references to primary sources . (July 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
The Government Statistical Service (GSS) is the community of all civil servants in the United Kingdom who work in the collection, production and communication of official statistics. [1] It includes not only statisticians, but also economists, social researchers, IT professionals, and secretarial and clerical staff. Members of the GSS work in the Office for National Statistics, most UK Government departments, and the devolved administrations. The GSS publishes around 2,000 sets of statistics each year, as well as providing professional advice and analysis to decision-makers. [2]
The National Statistician is the Head of the GSS.
The Government Statistician Group (GSG) is a subset of the GSS, and is the community of professional government statisticians who meet the standards for statistical qualifications and competence set by the National Statistician's Office. [1]
The GSS was formed in 1968, in response to a series of recommendations made by Claus Moser, director of the Central Statistical Office, who recognised that 'society was going through radical changes, and social and economic policy was being made on incorrect and out of date statistics. Data was not being shared efficiently across government delaying its use in decisions. There was duplication of work in some areas and gaps in others. It lacked a joined-up approach across government.' [3]
A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may work as employees or as statistical consultants.
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament.
The Welsh Government is the devolved government of Wales. The government consists of ministers, who attend cabinet meetings, and deputy ministers who do not, and also of a counsel general. It is led by the first minister, usually the leader of the largest party in the Senedd, who selects ministers and deputy ministers with the approval of the Senedd. The government is responsible for tabling policy in devolved areas for consideration by the Senedd and implementing policy that has been approved by it.
ONS codes are geocodes maintained by the United Kingdom's Office for National Statistics to represent a wide range of geographical areas of the UK, for use in tabulating census and other statistical data. These codes are also known as GSS codes, where GSS refers to the Government Statistical Service of which ONS is part.
In the United Kingdom, the Retail Prices Index or Retail Price Index (RPI) is a measure of inflation published monthly by the Office for National Statistics. It measures the change in the cost of a representative sample of retail goods and services.
Dame Karen Hope Dunnell, DCB, FAcSS is a British medical sociologist and civil servant. She was National Statistician and Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics of the United Kingdom and head of the Government Statistical Service from 1 September 2005 until retiring on 28 August 2009. Since its inception in 2008, she was also the Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority. She now has a range of non-executive roles including membership of Pricewaterhouse Coopers Public Interest Body, Trustee of National Heart Forum, member of the Court of Governors, University of Westminster.
Leonard Warren Cook CBE is a professional statistician who was Government Statistician of New Zealand from 1992 to 2000, and National Statistician and Director of the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics, and Registrar General for England and Wales from 2000 to 2005. He served as Families Commissioner in New Zealand from 2015 to 2018.
The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), formerly the United Nations Statistical Office, serves under the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) as the central mechanism within the Secretariat of the United Nations to supply the statistical needs and coordinating activities of the global statistical system. The Division is overseen by the United Nations Statistical Commission, established in 1947, as the apex entity of the global statistical system and highest decision making body for coordinating international statistical activities. It brings together the Chief Statisticians from member states from around the world.
The Philippine Statistics Authority, abbreviated as PSA, is the central statistical authority of the Philippine government that collects, compiles, analyzes and publishes statistical information on economic, social, demographic, political affairs and general affairs of the people of the Philippines and enforces the civil registration functions in the country.
The Central Statistical Office (CSO) was a British government department charged with the collection and publication of economic statistics for the United Kingdom. It preceded the Office for National Statistics.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is the independent statutory agency of the Australian Government responsible for statistical collection and analysis, and for giving evidence-based advice to federal, state and territory governments. The ABS collects and analyses statistics on economic, population, environmental and social issues, publishing many on their website. The ABS also operates the national Census of Population and Housing that occurs every five years.
The Neighbourhood Statistics Service (NeSS) was established in 2001 by the UK's Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Neighbourhood Renewal Unit (NRU) - then part of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), now Communities and Local Government (CLG) - to provide good quality small area data to support the Government's Neighbourhood Renewal agenda. This cross-Government initiative also involved the co-operation and partnership of data suppliers across departments, agencies and other organisations. The ONS closed the Neighbourhood Statistics website for England and Wales on the 12 May 2017. To offset this, the ONS is aiming to meet the needs of users via the ONS website, although direct postcode searches are no longer available to users.
Sir Harry Campion, KCB, CBE was a British statistician and the first director of what was the Central Statistical Office of the United Kingdom. He was also first director of the United Nations Statistical Office. He played a leading role in the development of official statistics, nationally and internationally, after the Second World War.
Sir Arthur John Boreham, KCB was a British government statistician and the director of what was the Central Statistical Office of the United Kingdom from 1978 to 1985. He was knighted in 1980.
The UK Statistics Authority is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for oversight of the Office for National Statistics, maintaining a national code of practice for official statistics, and accrediting statistics that comply with the Code as National Statistics. UKSA was established on 1 April 2008 by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, and is directly accountable to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is responsible for the census in England and Wales, the General Register Office for Scotland (GROS) is responsible for the census in Scotland, and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) is responsible for the census in Northern Ireland.
The Census and Statistics Department is the provider of major social and economic official statistics in Hong Kong. It is also responsible for conducting Population Census and By-census in Hong Kong since 1971. Its head office is in the Wanchai Tower in Wan Chai.
Beyond 2011 also known as The Beyond 2011 Programme is a project initiated by the UK Statistics Authority to look at the alternatives to running a Census in 2021. In 2008 UK Government Treasury Select Committee had expressed concerns about the increasing cost of running the census and inaccuracies in data gathered only every ten years. In 2010 the newly elected coalition government reiterated such concerns responding to a report by the UK Statistics Authority.
John James Pullinger was the National Statistician for the United Kingdom, serving in this role from 1 July 2014 until retiring on 30 June 2019. He was succeeded on an interim basis by Deputy National Statistician Jonathan Athow, and by Sir Ian Diamond on a permanent basis from October 2019.He is now the candidate to lead the Electoral Commission.
On 21 March 2021, the decennial 2021 censuses of England and Wales and of Northern Ireland. The census of Scotland is planned to take place in 2022. The censuses were administered by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) in England and Wales, by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) in Northern Ireland, and by the National Records of Scotland in Scotland. These were the first British censuses for which most of the data was gathered online, and two of them went ahead despite the COVID-19 pandemic, in part because the information obtained will assist government and public understanding of the pandemic's impact. Enumeration in Scotland was postponed, and is planned to take place in 2022, the plans for it having been delayed because of the pandemic.