Income and earnings coherence workplan

Analysis of important areas of public and policy interest on household finances

Initiative

Produce updated analysis on important areas of public and policy interest, such as on the effects of COVID-19 and changes in the cost of living on household finances.

Owner

This work is led by Ellys Monahan from the Crime, Income and Wealth division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is ongoing.

Our annual and ad-hoc analysis will continue to concentrate on priority topics. Recent examples include:

• Parents more likely to report increases in their cost of living
• How increases in housing costs impact households

Article on the composition of jobs and its impact on earnings growth

Initiative

Consider the feasibility of producing an article on the composition of jobs and its impact on earnings growth using monthly earnings bulletin data.

This analysis will use Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and Labour Force Survey (LFS) data.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has been completed.

You can visit the ONS website to read the publication about how furlough and changes in the employee workforce affected earnings growth during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the UK from 2020 to 2021.

Publish small area regional household finance statistics on a single day

Initiative

Develop a longer-term strategy to produce small area regional household income estimates. This includes:

• considering the alignment of publication dates
• bringing together administrative and survey-based statistics

Owner

This work is led by:

• Ellys Monahan from the Crime, Income and Wealth division at the ONS
• Michael Cole from the Social Statistics Transformation, Analysis and Research division at the ONS

Progress

This work is currently being scoped out.

Publications have not been published on a single day because of prioritised commitments and timelines for available data and resources. We will continue to work together to explore how we can align income statistics based on administrative data with our headline estimates.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Review the timeliness of the public and private sector earnings publication

Initiative

Review the timeliness of the public and private sector earnings publication. Consider if it can be brought closer to the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) publication date.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet been started. It is dependent on resourcing and prioritisation.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Review alignment of income and earnings releases across the GSS

Initiative

Review what has been done to align releases across the GSS. Explore:

• what further work could be done to align releases
• how much it would cost to align releases

A significant amount of work has already been done to align releases within departments. This initiative is about considering alignment across the GSS.

Owner

This work is led by Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet been started. It is dependent on resourcing and prioritisation.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Spring 2023.

Determine the user need for a single set of UK level household income statistics

Initiative

The GSS Income and Earnings Coherence Steering Group will determine the user need for a single set of UK level household income statistics. This includes both cross-sectional and longitudinal statistics.

If it is found that users need a single set of UK level household income statistics, the Steering Group will help producers work towards creating a single, coherent and comprehensive evidence base for income statistics by providing:

• overarching direction
• strategic insight and leadership

Once the user need has been established, producers will work together to explore the feasibility of producing a single set of household income statistics.

Owner

This work is led by:

• Adrian Chesson, from the Household Financial Statistics Transformation project at the ONS
• John Marais from the Household Income and Wealth division at the ONS
• Steve Ellerd-Elliott, Chief Statistician at DWP

Progress

This work is in progress.

The ONS’s Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) user requirements exercise collected evidence which suggests that some users would value a single set of household income statistics. The user need will be considered further when the Transforming the ONS’s household financial statistics consultation closes.

Timeframe

The Transforming the ONS’s household financial statistics consultation opened on 1 December 2022. It will close on 23 February 2023. A consultation response will be published in Spring 2023.

DWP will engage with users on the ongoing transformation work for the Family Resources Survey (FRS) in 2024.

Continued integration of ONS household surveys

Initiative

Continue work to further integrate the Living Cost and Food Survey (LCF) and the Survey of Living Conditions (SLC) into the Household Finances Survey (HFS) (e.g. integration into a single question collection design and alignment if possible with administrative sources).

Owner

This work is led by Martina Portanti from the Social Survey Delivery division at the ONS.

Progress

This initiative has now closed and has been replaced by the new Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project initiative.

Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project

Initiative

Produce a single source of information on household finances within ONS, including income, expenditure and wealth for the same households. This will involve using a combination of administrative data and efficient statistical methods to enhance survey-based data. By doing this we can meet user needs in a sustainable way.

Owner

This work is led by Adrian Chesson from the Household Financial Statistics Transformation project at the ONS.

Progress

This work is in progress.

Timeframe

The Transforming the ONS’s household financial statistics consultation opened on 1 December 2022. It will close on 23 February 2023. A consultation response will be published in Spring 2023.

Develop the transformed Labour Force Survey (LFS) to replace the current LFS and introduce further uses of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) administrative data in labour market estimates

Initiative

Continue to develop and embed new systems and processes for the transformed LFS using a multi-mode collection, which includes online, telephone and knock to nudge modes.

This also includes analysing and evaluating outputs to ensure statistical quality criteria are met.

Identify opportunities for further use of PAYE RTI administrative data in the labour market estimates, such as linking PAYE RTI to other sources i.e. Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR). This will help improve granularity, enhance existing measures, or potentially replace some business survey data.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is in progress.

The team promoted a user engagement exercise and associated blog from March to June 2022. You can visit the ONS consultations website to access the Labour Market Statistics User Engagement exercise. You can visit the ONS National Statistical blog to read more about the transformation of the Labour Force Survey.

The first in a series of quarterly articles was published in September 2022 outlining the progress of plans for both transformed LFS and the PAYE RTI project, along with a response to the user engagement exercise. You can visit the ONS website to read an update about labour market transformation.

Timeframe

We will continue to publish regular quarterly transformation updates. The next update is planned for 24 January 2023.

More detailed outputs will be published in between the regular quarterly transformation updates. This includes outputs like:

• dummy datasets
• methods used
• early analysis
• findings

Reconcile differences between Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) and Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) statistics

Initiative

Work with HMRC to reconcile differences between PAYE-RTI and AWE statistics. This would be at the aggregate level initially.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet been started. We will continue to update the comparison of labour market data sources with the latest data.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Continue working with colleagues across the GSS towards an “admin data first” approach to household income statistics

Initiative

ONS and DWP have their own development programmes to use and integrate unit level administrative data into the production of existing household income statistics.

ONS is also developing income statistics based on administrative data for small areas. This work is part of the ONS Social Statistics Admin First project.

We will work across the system to ensure our work is co-ordinated and moving towards the long-term aim to be “admin data first” in our approach to household income statistics.

Owner

This work is led by:

• Adrian Chesson from the Household Financial Statistics Transformation project at the ONS
• John Marais from the Crime Income and Wealth division at the ONS
• Steve Ellerd-Elliott, Chief Statistician at DWP

Progress

This work is in progress.

DWP has arranged a series of workshops to better understand cross-GSS approaches to using administrative data to measure household incomes.

Timeframe

The workshops will continue throughout 2023.

Continue to build on the use of administrative data in ONS household surveys

Initiative

Continue to build on the use of administrative data in ONS household surveys to improve the quality and granularity of our core household statistics. This includes investigating the use of HMRC’s Pay As You Earn (PAYE) Real Time Information (RTI) data alongside DWP administrative data sources.

Understand and address the user need for continued access to microdata as the datasets become larger and more sensitive with the addition of administrative data.

Owner

This work is led by Adam Evans from the Household Financial Statistics Transformation project at the ONS.

Progress

This work is being scoped out. It will be progressed as part of the new Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project which has a specific administrative data workstream.

The output could potentially be used for question replacement, for the development of weighting and sampling strategies or for quality assurance purposes.

Timeframe

The goals include ingesting, developing the pipeline and integrating HMRC’s PAYE RTI data into the HFST by the end of March 2025.

Linking of the Family Resources Survey (FRS) and administrative data

Initiative

Continue the FRS transformation by developing approaches to integrate a range of administrative data from DWP and HMRC into the survey. This will improve data quality and timeliness. FRS transformation will help reduce under-coverage at the bottom end of the income distribution.

This initiative specifically uses administrative data for survey variable replacement.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP.

Progress

This work is in progress.

FRS Transformation development work continues to build on the development of a data linking approach that provides high quality match rates with quality assurance that is repeatable. DWP is now looking to develop an implementation plan for the financial year ending (FYE) 2023 data release.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided once a plan is in place in Spring 2023.

Consider updating the admin-based income statistics for small areas to a more recent year

Initiative

Consider the feasibility of updating the admin-based income statistics for small areas to a more recent year. This includes both individual and occupied address (household) statistics. This is part of the ONS Social Statistics Admin First project.

Owner

This work is led by Samantha Pendleton from the Social Statistics Transformation, Analysis and Research division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has been completed. You can visit the ONS website to read the Admin-based income statistics, England and Wales: tax year ending 2018 report.

Publish research into census-based household income

Initiative

Publish research into census-based household income using administrative data. This means using a census population base rather than an administrative population base. This is part of the ONS Social Statistics Admin First project.

Owner

This work is led by Samantha Pendleton from the Social Statistics Transformation, Analysis and Research division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is being scoped out.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Spring 2023.

Explore the availability of alternative income data sources

Initiative

Explore and monitor the availability of alternative data sources which could supplement existing income and earnings data. An example could be financial transactions data.

Owner

This work is led by Adam Evans from the Household Financial Statistics Transformation project at the ONS.

Progress

This work is being scoped out. It will be progressed as part of the new Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project which has a specific administrative data workstream.

Timeframe

The team is aiming to have scoped and begun procurement of a significant proportion of agreed alternative data sources by end of March 2025. But the timescale for this work depends on external factors.

Review the approaches to “admin first” and share best practice

Initiative

Organise an event for GSS producers to share approaches being used to incorporate administrative data into income and earnings statistics and agree best practice.

Owner

This work is led by Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has been completed.

A cross-GSS workshop was held in June 2022 on the use, and planned use, of administrative data in the production of income and earnings statistics. Colleagues are exploring synergies in their work and opportunities to share knowledge following the workshop.

Consider how the Household Finances Survey (HFS) could better capture those at the top and bottom of the income distribution

Initiative

Consider how the sample design of Household Finances Survey (HFS) could better capture and represent those at the top and bottom of the income distribution. This is part of the wider HFS transformation work.

Owner

This work is led by Carla Kidd from the Household Financial Statistics Transformation project at the ONS.

Progress

This work is in progress. It will be progressed as part of the new Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project.

Timeframe

An update will be provided on this initiative in Spring 2023.

Review alignment with international best practice

Initiative

Review the alignment of income and earnings statistics with international best practice.

This work will consider our relationship with the European Union, specifically our post-Brexit status.

Owner

This work is led by Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet started. It is dependent on resourcing and prioritisation.

Timeframe

An update will be provided on this initiative in Spring 2023.

Financial wellbeing

Initiative

Explore the user need for financial resilience, material deprivation and poverty statistics, with a view to reintroducing ONS statistics on these topics, possibly within an annual financial wellbeing publication.

Owner

This work is led by John Marais from the Household Income and Wealth division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is in progress. An internal material deprivation review has been completed.

Timeframe

The Transforming the ONS’s household financial statistics consultation opened on 1 December 2022. It closes on 23 February 2023. A consultation response will be published in Spring 2023.

Review Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) statistics available in ONS ‘Customise My Data‘

Initiative

Review and potentially increase the range of ASHE statistics available in the ONS ‘Customise My Data’ service.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet started.

The existing ASHE tables in ‘Customise My Data’ will be updated imminently. The team will then re-assess if this initiative is still a priority given the focus on the Secure Research Service (SRS) and the Interactive Data Service (IDS).

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Publish more regular insights on living standards

Initiative

Publish more regular, higher frequency insights on living standards from a range of surveys and administrative datasets.

Owner

This work is led by Ellys Monahan from the Household Income and Wealth division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is ongoing.

Our annual and ad-hoc analysis will continue to concentrate on priority topics such as living standards. Recent examples include:

• Parents more likely to report increases in their cost of living
• How increases in housing costs impact households

Update the “guide to sources of data on income and earnings”

Initiative

Review and build on the “guide to sources of data on income and earnings” to ensure it references income-based poverty statistics and includes the new DWP Children in Low Income Families (CiLIF) publication.

Owner

This work is led by Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has been completed. The updated guide was published in March 2022. You can visit the ONS website to access the income and earnings statistics guide.

Ensure the functionality of the interactive tool is included in the dissemination arm of the Integrated Data Service (IDS)

Initiative

Work closely with the IDS team to ensure that the functionality of the interactive tool is incorporated into the dissemination arm of the IDS.

Owner

This work is led by Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is in progress.

The IDS has been creating a content management system and tools to help analysts produce ready-to-use, well described data. This is demonstrated through the proof of concept climate change portal, which brings together cross government data to use in a series of dashboards and articles.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Spring 2023.

Include Family Resources Survey (FRS) related data in the ONS Secure Research Service (SRS)

Initiative

Explore the feasibility of including FRS-related data in the ONS SRS.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP.

Progress

This work has been completed. An update will be provided once the datasets are available.

Release Family Resources Survey (FRS) related data through Stat X-plore

Initiative

Explore the feasibility of releasing FRS-related data through the DWP Stat X-plore tool.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP.

Progress

This work has been completed.

FRS material went live on Stat X-plore on 17 January 2023.

Update and engage with users on plans to improve self-employed income data following HMRC’s “Making Tax Digital” initiative

Initiative

Update and engage with users on plans to explore the feasibility of improving self-employed income data following HMRC’s “Making Tax Digital” initiative.

HMRC is increasingly moving to real time digital platforms for collection of tax liability and payment data. This is bringing benefits to HMRC and other government departments in the timeliness and coverage of data on parts of the taxpayer population, for example the employed. In time this will extend to other taxpayer populations, such as the self-employed, through a programme known as “Making Tax Digital”. At this time it is difficult to give a precise timeframe for this work.

Owner

This work is led by HMRC.

Progress

This work has not yet started.

The mandation of Making Tax Digital for Income Tax Self-Assessment (ITSA) will be introduced from April 2026. Further details are available in HMRC’s update statement made on 19 December 2022.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2025.

Establish a working group to consider the impact of COVID-19 on the Family Resources Survey (FRS) and Household Finances Survey (HFS) data quality and develop solutions

Initiative

DWP and ONS jointly establish a working group where research into the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on data collection, dataset production and analysis for the FRS and HFS datasets are shared and solutions developed.

Owner

This work is led by:

• Veronique Siegler from the Social Survey Delivery at the ONS
• Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP

Progress

This work has been completed.

The working group for the financial year ending (FYE) 2021 publications has concluded. The teams have agreed to informal meetings for the financial year ending (FYE) 2022 publications to:

• share approaches
• discuss best practice
• align methods, where possible

Understand the impact of COVID-19 on the Family Resources Survey (FRS) data quality

Initiative

Implement adjustments into the financial year ending (FYE) 2021 FRS dataset (and publications based on the FRS including Households Below Average Income (HBAI), Pensioners’ Income (PI) and benefit take-up statistics) to understand the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on data quality.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP.

Progress

This work has been completed.

You can visit GOV.UK to access the technical report assessing the effect of COVID-19 on the HBAI statistics for FYE 2021 on GOV.UK.

Understand the impact of COVID-19 on Household Finances Survey (HFS) data quality

Initiative

Implement adjustments into the financial year ending (FYE) 2021 HFS dataset (and associated publications) to understand the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on data quality.

Owner

This work is led by Veronique Siegler from the Survey Operations at ONS.

Progress

This work has been completed.

You can visit the ONS website to access the release interpreting changes in UK income estimates during the coronavirus pandemic for the FYE 2021.

Implement a new template to report on the quality of HMRC’s official statistics

Initiative

HMRC is adopting ONS’s Best Practice and Impact Team’s background quality report template to report on the quality of its official statistics.

Note: This is part of a wider programme of quality-related improvements designed in response to recommendations in the Office for Statistics Regulation’s (OSR) report on HMRC’s statistics, published in April 2020. The programme of work includes: setting up a quality network to discuss developments across HMRC analytical teams, setting clearer expectations for quality assurance, building stronger links with data providers and making greater use of data science tools and methods.

Owner

This work is led by Jackie Orme from HMRC .

Progress

This work is in progress.

Timeframe

This initiative is due to be completed in March 2023.

Review how income and earnings publications present information on quality

Initiative

Review how income and earnings articles and publications:

• present information on the quality of the statistics and how comprehensive they are
• showcase best practice for producers of statistics

Owner

This work is led by Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet started. It is dependent on resourcing and prioritisation.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Spring 2023.

Investigate non-response bias in the Family Resources Survey (FRS)

Initiative

Run a feasibility study to investigate non-response bias in the FRS.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP.

Progress

This work is in progress.

DWP will build on its data linking development to explore linking the FRS issued sample addresses, such as responding and non-responding, to administrative data. Complex methodology is involved in this innovative work and development is continuing at this stage but is looking positive. Results will be considered as part of the wider implementation of administrative data into the FRS.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Spring 2023.

Use Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAPs) in the production of ONS’s household finance statistics

Initiative

Use RAPs to produce ONS’s household finance statistics and review production and publication times of the outputs post-implementation.

Owner

This work is led by:

• Ellys Monahan from the Crime Income and Wealth division at the ONS
• Martina Portanti from the Social Survey Delivery division at the ONS

Progress

This work is in progress.

Aspects of this work are being progressed by both the production team and the new Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project, which has a specific data processing workstream.

Timeframe

For income, a new editing pipeline has been used to validate data for the Survey of Living Conditions (SLC). The pipeline has been in use since April 2021 to support financial year ending (FYE) 2022 income statistics. Since April 2022, Living Costs and Food survey (LCF) income data is also being routinely edited within the same pipeline.

Use Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAPs) in the production of Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) and Average Weekly Earnings (AWE)

Initiative

Use RAPs in the statistical production of ASHE and AWE and review production and publication times of the outputs post-implementation.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet started. It is dependent on funding, resourcing, and prioritisation.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Review the timeliness of the Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) publication

Initiative

Review the timeliness of the AWE publication now that its data collection has moved online.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has been completed.

The timeliness of the AWE publication has been reviewed by the production team. No further improvements can be made to the current schedule.

Consider moving data collection for the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) online

Initiative

Consider whether the data collection for ASHE could move online. If this is possible, then review the timeliness of the ASHE publication post-implementation.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is in progress.

In 2022 the number of ASHE returns through the Secure Electronic File Transfer (SEFT) increased. The same will happen again in 2023. However, the team is considering the need to move the remaining collection online against other priorities.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Increase Family Resources Survey (FRS) sample size

Initiative

Increase the FRS sample to 45,000 households a year. This will start in the Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2022 with a partial boost, and there will be a full boost from the financial year ending 2023. The first annual results based on the full sample are expected in the March 2024 publication. The boost will support a range of more granular analysis, such as by ethnicity.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP.

Progress

This work is in progress.

The partial boost started in October 2021. The additional sample will be included in the FRS for the Financial Year Ending (FYE) 2022. The results will be published in March 2023.

Fieldwork for FYE 2023 is continuing in a challenging climate and the final achieved sample will be known in Spring 2023.

Timeframe

The full sample boost started in April 2022 and DWP is continuing to monitor fieldwork progress and the results will be published in March 2024.

Consider increasing the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) sample size

Initiative

Consider whether there is the user need and funding to boost the ASHE sample which would enable improved regional granularity.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet started.

The ASHE sample size is yet to reach pre-coronavirus levels. Further increases to the sample size will only be considered when this is achieved.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Consider optimising the granularity of the Labour Market Survey (LMS)

Initiative

Consider whether there is scope to further optimise the granularity of the LMS.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This initiative has closed. It is part of the wider Labour Market Transformation initiative.

Consider how ONS household finance surveys can better capture information about under-represented groups

Initiative

Consider how ONS household finance surveys can better capture information about under-represented groups in society, such as non-household populations.

Owner

This work is led by Carla Kidd from the Household Financial Statistics Transformation project at the ONS.

Progress

This work is being scoped out. It is being progressed as part of the new Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project.

Timeframe

The team is having initial discussions with the Integrated Data Task Force (IDTF) team before establishing a time frame.

Investigate Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) pensions questions

Initiative

Investigate ASHE pensions questions to consider coverage, clarify quality of data collected, and consider use of outputs.

Owner

This work is led by David Freeman from the Labour Market and Households division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has not yet started. It is dependent on funding, resourcing, and prioritisation.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in Autumn 2023.

Publish a feasibility report and initial research into producing admin-based income by ethnicity statistics

Initiative

Combine admin-based income statistics and admin-based ethnicity statistics and use this to assess the feasibility of producing multivariate analysis by income and ethnicity for small areas.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Harkrader from the Social Statistics Transformation, Analysis and Research division at the ONS.

Progress

This work has been completed. You can visit the ONS website to access the release developing subnational multivariate income by ethnicity statistics from administrative data, England for the tax year ending 2016.

Publish an update on the development of admin-based income by ethnicity statistics

Initiative

Assess the quality of the admin-based income by ethnicity statistics by comparing them against related data sets.

Owner

This work is led by:

• Joanna Harkrader from the Social Statistics Transformation, Analysis and Research division at the ONS
• Ellys Monahan from the Household Income and Wealth division at the ONS

Progress

This work is in progress.

Timeframe

An update on this initiative will be provided in early 2023.

Actively share our coherence work with users

Initiative

Work with colleagues across the GSS to promote our coherence work through:

• participation in regular and informal engagements
• existing email groups and newsletters, social media and Stats User Net

Actively seek user views using these mechanisms and use the feedback received to further refine our workplan. We will look to widen our user base and improve our understanding of how our statistics are being used across the policy and service provision.

Owner

This work is led by:

• Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS
• production teams in ONS, DWP, and HMRC

Progress

This work is ongoing.

User engagement is part of the new Household Financial Statistics Transformation (HFST) project. The team held tailored workshops and meetings with a range of users in Spring and Summer 2022, as well as issuing a user survey to collect feedback from a wider range of users.

Timeframe

The Transforming the ONS’s household financial statistics consultation opened on 1 December 2022. It will close on 23 February 2023. A consultation response will be published in Spring 2023.

DWP held a UK Data Service (UKDS) workshop on using FRS data in October 2022 and are considering holding future events based on user feedback.

A blog post, written jointly by GSS producers of poverty-based income statistics and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), is currently planned for early 2023. This will update users and celebrate the work that has been done to address recommendations from OSR’s income-based poverty statistics review.

The next Family Finance Survey User Conference organised by the UK Data Service (UKDS) is planned for July 2023.

Continue to update the DWP statistical work programme

Initiative

DWP’s statistical work programme brings together developments from across all DWP Official Statistics into a single programme. This includes publication-specific and cross-departmental plans.

Owner

This work is led by Joanna Littlechild, Head of Surveys at DWP.

Progress

This work is ongoing. The statistical work programme is reviewed monthly and will be updated regularly throughout 2023. You can visit GOV.UK to access the DWP statistical work programme.

Take a UK-wide approach to income and earnings statistics and regularly engage with the Devolved Administrations

Initiative

Ensure there are good lines of communication between UK producers of income and earnings statistics and the Devolved Administrations.

Owner

This work is led by Nick Woodhill from the Statistical Coherence and Inclusion division at the ONS.

Progress

This work is ongoing.

The income and earnings coherence tool is UK-wide.

The coherence team has regular meetings with the Devolved Administrations.

DWP also has regular meetings with the Devolved Administrations given their use of Family Resources Survey (FRS) and Households Below Average Income (HBAI) data.