Government Analysis Function > Government Statistical Service > Information about GSS statistics > Theme-based statistics > GSS theme workplans > GSS Children and Education workplan

GSS Children and Education workplan

This page sets out the medium term (3 year) workplan for the GSS Children and Education theme group.

Policies for Children and Education are largely a devolved matter. However, the producers of statistics across the UK nations agree that further progress can be made in several important areas, supporting the priorities of the UK and devolved governments. Examples include joint topical work and sharing of methods in relation to:

  • school achievement
  • children missing education
  • school attendance and behaviour
  • children’s mental health
  • children’s social care market sufficiency
  • understanding of long-term economic and labour market outcomes

There is also a clear desire to work across producer bodies and nations to contribute to the central programmes affecting our collective understanding of children and families. These include the Office for National Statistics’ work on the future of population and migration statistics, and work to store, share and analyse relevant data held in the Integrated Data Service.

The coverage of this theme is UK wide, particularly for coherence. National level statistics are typical for this theme, given the devolved nature of education and children’s social care policies.

Priority areas

Priorities for improved collaboration include:

  • Improving the coherence and promoting comparability of statistics on education through the review of the official statistics on Education and training for the UK. Considering how we can produce a similar description of similarities and differences between systems for children’s social care and early years.
  • Joint work on user engagement (considering data on children and education through the eyes of users) to listen more to user voice. Sharing insight from user engagement (on respective statistics) across the GSS children and education producer community.
  • Improving data sharing.
  • Improving harmonisation in line with GSS guidance.
  • Exploring joint work on Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion.
  • There is also interest in developing joint work on the impact of AI on statistics for children and education.

For 2026, the three main priority areas are:

  • Improving collaboration, with a particular focus on coherence of education statistics through the review of the official statistics
  • Improving topical understanding/impact, by sharing insight between producer bodies
  • Contributing to central programmes affecting children and education, providing joint feedback to ONS programmes

This links to the existing official statistics on Education and training for the UK. It aims to compile information and data on education systems across the UK where they are comparable. This is the primary way by which we aim to achieve coherence, comparability and user engagement within the theme.

Planned changes to existing publications across the theme

As part of the coherence workstrand, we are planning a review of the Education and training for the UK official statistics, informing future development plans.

Lead and supporting departments of statistics within the theme

Lead department: Department for Education

Supported by the Children and Education GSS theme group (alphabetically listed):

  • Department for the Economy Northern Ireland
  • Department of Education Northern Ireland
  • Estyn
  • Jisc
  • Medr
  • Office for National Statistics
  • Office for Students
  • Ofsted
  • Ofqual
  • Scottish Government
  • Student Loans Company
  • UCAS
  • Qualifications Wales
  • Welsh Government

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