The Office of National Statistics, commenced operation on 1 April 1996 as a result of the merger of the Central Statistical Office and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. The Central Statistical Office was a government department charged with the collection and publication of economic statistics for the United Kingdom. Each government department prepared and published its own statistics (either directly or via Her Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO)). The statistics divisions of all major departments plus the Business Statistics Office and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) made up the Government Statistical Service and the Central Statistical Office co-ordinated the system.

Top

7.4.1.2.2 Government Statistical Service
The Government Statistical Service (GSS) is a community for all civil servants working in the collection, production and communication of official statistics, whether they work in the Office for National Statistics, a government department or devolved administrations. The GSS includes statisticians, economists, social researchers, IT professionals and secretarial and clerical staff.

The GSS publishes around 2,000 sets of statistics each year, (including the 630 produced by the Office for National Statistics).

The National Statistician is the Head of the GSS and, as the Authority's Chief Executive and Permanent Secretary, is a member of the Board of the UK Statistics Authority. The National Statistician's role includes: safeguarding the production and publication of high quality official statistics by all departments, agencies and institutions within the United Kingdom; providing professional leadership to all statisticians within the UK government and the devolved administrations, as well as other producers of official statistics; providing strategic oversight of the Office for National Statistics; providing advice to ministers, the Cabinet Secretary and other senior officials on the production, dissemination and use of statistics across government.

Top

7.4.1.2.3 Administrative Data Research Network
To aid research, the Administrative Data Research Network was set up. It is a United Kingdom-wide partnership between universities, government departments and agencies, funders and the wider research community.

The ADRN is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and has been established to facilitate accredited researchers in accessing de-identified (with names and addresses removed) administrative data, which is routinely collected by government organisations, for the purposes of social and economic research.

The use of data is controlled, though. An Approvals Panel examines every research proposal thoroughly. Once they give their approval, the data custodian has to agree to share its data before the research can go ahead. The network provides a secure environment for the researcher to work in and researchers cannot take any data out of this safe setting. Furthermore, Network staff scrutinise the results before publication to make sure they are relevant to the project and do not disclose any information about individuals.

Examples of available surveys include, the British Social Attitudes Survey, Crime Survey for England and Wales and the composite Social Trends summaries.

Top

7.4.1.2.4 The British Social Attitudes Survey
The British Social Attitudes Survey is an annual statistical survey conducted in Great Britain by NatCen Social Research since 1983 and the report, British Social Attitudes 32, was launched on 26 March 2015. It asks over 3,000 people what it is like to live in Britain and how they think Britain is run. It tracks changes in people's social, political and moral attitudes and informs public policy as well as being an important barometer of public attitudes used by opinion leaders and social commentators.

The survey involves in-depth interviews with respondents who are selected using random probability sampling. Interviews are on topics including newspaper readership, political parties and trust, public expenditure, welfare benefits, health care, childcare, poverty, the labour market and the workplace, education, charitable giving, the countryside, transport and the environment, the European Union, economic prospects, race, religion, civil liberties, immigration, sentencing and prisons, fear of crime and the portrayal of sex and violence in the media.

The survey is funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, government departments, quasi-governmental bodies and other grant-giving organisations.

The British Social Attitudes Survey was not conducted in 1988 and 1992, when funding was devoted instead to studies of voting behaviour and political attitudes in the British Election Study. The data from the study can downloaded from the UK Data Archive website (at http://data-archive.ac.uk, accessed 15 June 2015).

Top

7.4.1.2.5 The Crime Survey for England and Wales
The Crime Survey for England and Wales is a systematic victim study, currently carried out by BMRB Limited on behalf of the Home Office. It was started in 1982 as the British Crime Survey and included Scotland. However, the Scottish Government has commissioned a bespoke survey of victimisation in Scotland called the Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (SCVS).

The Crime Survey for England and Wales seeks to measure the amount of crime in England and Wales by asking around 50,000 people aged 16 and over (as of January 2009), living in private households, about the crimes they have experienced in the last year. From January 2009, 4,000 interviews were also conducted each year with children 10–15 years old, although the resulting statistics have been treated as experimental.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales is comparable to the National Crime Victimization Survey conducted in the United States.

Since its commencement in 1982, the The British Crime Survey was carried out in 1984, 1988, 1992, and every two years to 2000. It was then undertaken in 2001 and since April 2001, interviews have been carried out on a continuous basis and detailed results from that point are now reported by financial years. Headline measures are updated quarterly based on interviews conducted in the previous 12 months.

It is the view of the Home Office that the Crime Survey for England and Wales provides a better indication of the true level of crime than police statistics since it includes crimes that have not been reported to, or recorded by, the police for various reasons. For example, the survey captures crimes that people think are too trivial to report or that the police will not be able or willing to do anything about. Over one third of reports of violent crimes are not recorded by police, for example.

The Home Office also claims that the survey provides a better measure of trends over time since it has adopted a consistent methodology and is unaffected by changes in reporting or recording practices. Data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales can also be downloaded for research and teaching use from the UK Data Service website.

The survey, while being regarded as a better indication of crime levels than reported police statistics, has faced criticism. It arbitrarily restricts the number of crimes that can be reported in the survey to five, which it has been estimated means an underreporting of about three million incidents a year, including about an 80% underreporting of violent crime. The five crimes per person limit has been consistent since the survey began so this might not affect the long-term trends. However, it takes little account of crimes such as domestic violence, figures for which would allegedly be 140% higher without the reporting limit in the survey.

Although highly regarded, the survey has also been criticised for omitting rape, assault, drug offences, fraud, forgery, crime against businesses and vehicles as well as murder and manslaughter (as the victims are dead). People living in communal establishments such as, hospitals, student halls of residence, homeless hostels, nursing homes are not included either.

Top

7.4.1.2.6 Social Trends
Of all the general digests produced by the Government Statistical Service the most accessible, readable and widely used publication by social scientists is Social Trends. Originally published by HMSO and now Office for National Statistics, it was established in 1970 and was produced annually.

The last comprehensive published book seems to be Social Trends 41 (released in 2011), which covered, inter alia, the environment, housing, housing, health and social protection. A single volume, Measuring National Well-being was published 17 January 2012 as Social Trends 42: Population and later that year Measuring National Well-being - International comparisons released: 31 May 2012 (See the Office for National Statistics website for details at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/social-trends-rd/social-trends/index.html, accessed 21 June 2015.)

Social Trends was the major composite source of information about the social life of the country, drawing on social and economic data from a wide range of government departments and other organisations. It was packed with information presented in a readable form. It presents a broad picture of UK society and how it has been changing. For many students this would be the only source immediately available. Since Social Trends 41, the only related publication (as of June 2015) appears to be an article 'Social Trends spotlight on: E-society 2013', the first, and so far only, Social Trends 'Spotlight On' publication.

Although Social Trends is a useful summary source, for further analysis it is necessary to refer to the original source that is used in Social Trends, or to consult a special government department publication or even request a special tabulation from the department (which you there is normally a charge).

The main surveys used in Social Trends were:

• Census of Population
• General Household Survey
• Family Expenditure Survey
• National Food Survey
• International Passenger Survey
• National Readership Survey
• Survey of Personal Incomes
• New Earnings Survey
• EC Labour Force Survey
• National Travlel Survey

Activity 7.4.1
Look up the following statistics for the most recent year available and for a decade before. How have the figures changed? In each case also note the original source of the statistics and which parts of the United Kingdom are included in the total figures.
1. The number of divorces.
2. The number of people working in the manufacturing sector.
3. The average gross weekly earnings for men and for women.
4. The number of male and female prisoners.
5. The number of people who died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
6. The number of people who went to Spain on holiday.
7. The percentage of the population who were full-time students.
Time 45 minutes.

Note
The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 allows Ministers to specify, in secondary legislation, non-Crown Bodies that produce official statistics. Crown bodies also produce official statistics. Crown bodies include central UK Government departments and agencies (including the Office for National Statistics) and the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The non-Crown bodies that are currently regarded as producers of official statistics are listed in the the following secondary legislation:
The Official Statistics Order 2010; The Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008; The Official Statistics (Scotland) Amendment Order 2010; The Official Statistics (Scotland) Amendment Order 2012; The Official Statistics (Northern Ireland) Order 2012. If the statistics produced by a non-Crown body are official statistics it means that: they can be assessed to become National Statistics; the Code of Practice for Official Statistics applies to them; they can be monitored and checked by the UK Statistics Authority (correct as of March 2012).Return

Top

Next 7.4.1.3 Local official statistics