Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation Team workplan

Current offer

Our current harmonised standard for ethnicity is based on the questions used in UK censuses in 2011.

We recommend that people choose their own answer to the question about their ethnic group. This is because ethnicity will mean something different to each person.

We also recommend that this standard is used together with our religion harmonised standard and national identity harmonised standard. The questions should be asked in the following order: national identity, ethnic group, religion.

The ethnicity question in the current harmonised standard was reviewed and adapted for the UK censuses in 2021 and 2022. This was because of changes in respondent needs. The census questions were produced by balancing the new respondent needs with the need for coherence and comparability.

Because of this comprehensive work, the questions in the UK censuses in 2021 and 2022 are recommended for data collection for ethnic groups at present. But we recognise that user and respondent needs may have changed since the census questions were developed.

Priority activities

Our priority activities for the topic of ethnicity include:

• reviewing the topic area
• working with stakeholders and user groups to understand user needs
• testing possible improvements and changes to the question design, as needed
• providing guidance about what questions should be used while we are working on this topic area
• thinking about how any proposed changes to the ethnicity questions will align with the religion and national identity questions

Timescale

Our timescales will be guided by the feedback we get from stakeholders during our user engagement activities. We will provide progress updates about these timescales on this webpage.

We are now working to:

• publish the first findings from our research and engagement work in February 2023
• continue and finish the research and engagement work to publish findings late spring 2023
• design and test updates to the ethnicity standards throughout 2023 and early 2024
• publish updated online self-completion questions in 2023, followed by telephone mode and face-to-face mode questions in 2024 — this will depend on our research and engagement findings

Current offer

To collect data on disability in line with the Equality Act (2010) for Great Britain or the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) for Northern Ireland, we recommend using the:

• long lasting health conditions and illness harmonised standard
• activity restriction harmonised standard

We recommend using both harmonised standards together.

Users can also collect data using the impairment harmonised standard. This will give more information about the things that people can or cannot do. These questions were developed before the UK censuses in 2011.

Priority activities

Our priority activities for the topic of disability include:

• reviewing the topic area
• working with stakeholders and user groups to make sure disability standards meet user needs
• testing possible improvements and changes to the question design for the disability standards

Timescale

Our timescales will be guided by the feedback we get from stakeholders during our user engagement activities. We will provide progress updates on these timescales on this webpage.

We are now working to:

• publish the first findings from our research and engagement work in Spring 2023
• design and test updates to the disability standards throughout 2023
• publish updated online self-completion questions in 2023, followed by telephone mode and face-to-face mode questions – this will depend on our research and engagement findings

Current offer

The long-lasting health conditions and illness harmonised standard and impairment harmonised standard can capture data on mental health. However, they were not developed with the main aim of understanding mental health. We do not currently have a harmonised standard for mental health, instead, we have harmonisation guidance for mental health which describes the wider context of the topic.

Priority activities

Our priority activities for the topic of mental health include:

• working with stakeholders and user groups to understand whether a harmonised standard for mental health is needed
• developing and testing a harmonised standard for mental health, if it is needed

Timescale

Our timescales will be guided by the feedback we get from stakeholders during our user engagement activities. We will provide progress updates on these timescales on this webpage.

We are now working to:

• publish the first findings from our research and engagement work in Spring 2023
• review our findings and plan our 2023-2024 workstream

We updated the workplan for the topics of sex, gender identity and sexual orientation in December 2022. We have included a link to our published review of the gender identity standard and updated our priority activities and timescales for these topics.

Current offer

Our current gender identity data harmonised standard is ‘under development’. It is based on the Census 2021 question for England and Wales. This question was developed from the in-depth engagement, research and testing work that was done for Census 2021. We have published a review of the current standard, detailing its strengths and issues and setting out the work we plan to do to develop the standard further.

There is no harmonised standard on the topic of sex. But you can find some draft guidance for collecting and reporting data about sex in official statistics on the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) website.

Priority activities

Our priority activities for the topics of sex and gender identity include:

• changing the gender identity standard from ‘under development’ to ‘final’
• analysing Census 2021 write-in responses for the gender identity question
• publishing more guidance to help people use the questions – for example, more guidance will be needed for interviewer-led modes
• exploring the feasibility of including a list of gender identities as a closed question
• testing possible improvements and changes to question design as needed
• our sex harmonisation guidance by early 2023 to reflect a suite of existing technical guidance for data collectors
• undertaking stakeholder engagement for sex — this includes a survey for data users exploring administrative data to better understand how data is collected in administrative datasets

Timescale

Our timescales will be guided by the testing that we plan to do and our engagement with stakeholders and respondents. We will provide progress updates on these timescales on this webpage.

We are now working to:

• update our sex harmonisation guidance by early 2023 to reflect a suite of existing technical guidance for data collectors
• publish guidance on using the questions in interviewer-led modes in Summer 2023
• publish an updated gender identity standard with further guidance in Autumn 2023
• run research activities throughout winter 2022 and 2023

The coronavirus (COVID-19) harmonised standard has now been updated. We will continue to review it as the situation develops. This is an ongoing activity.

The marital or partnership status harmonised standard was updated in 2020. But user feedback has suggested there may be more user needs that we need to meet. We will now plan to work with data processors and collectors throughout 2023 to understand more about these user needs. We may update the standard or guidance to address this.

We have updated our national identity harmonised standard to improve alignment with Census 2021 in England and Wales 2021.

We have now published a short update to the National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification harmonised standard, which provides details of the 2020 rebased NS-SEC from the ONS.

We have updated our qualifications harmonised standard with questions developed with the Social Survey Research and Design Team in ONS.

We have updated our religion harmonised standard to improve alignment with Census 2021 in England and Wales.

We will begin a review of the current standard for sexual orientation in early 2023, and we plan to publish an update by Spring 2023.

We are developing a new harmonised standard for socio-economic background. We now plan to publish it in Spring 2023. Throughout 2022 and early 2023 we will:

• work with stakeholders to identify their needs
• set up a topic group and share with them updates on our work on socio-economic background
• conduct qualitative and quantitative research on our questions to ensure high-quality question design

Work is underway to review the various strands of the Titchfield City Group on Ageing. There is an ongoing project to produce guidance on harmonisation of aging related data to be published in 2024.

We have now published the first Welsh Language Skills harmonised standard which provides guidance to surveys that wish to collect information on the ability to speak, read, write, and understand spoken Welsh.