Press Release
WBG responds to UK Statistics Assembly Report
We welcome recommendations made by the report but have concerns about the UK Statistics Authority scaling up administrative data sources
Responding to the publication of the Independent report on the 2025 UK Statistics Assembly, Dr Liz Hind, Senior Training and Learning Officer said,
“We were pleased to take part in the UK Statistics Assembly earlier this year. We particularly welcome the top priority recommendation of user engagement in collecting and publishing data in the Independent Report published today. This is something we have long emphasised.
“Our work and the work of organisations addressing the needs of women, rely on access to detailed, accurate data disaggregated by sex and other characteristics to really understand women and men’s lives. We are also pleased to see a recommendation to develop a portfolio of sources to allow more granular data analysis particularly at the local level where many decisions are made that directly impact the lives of women. We also welcome recommendations to improve our understanding of not just the scale of unpaid care work, but the impact that this work has on carers.
“Developments in statistics should be done in co-production wherever possible to ensure that the people who are being measured have a say on how they are measured. This not only ensures that robust statistics are produced, but that those statistics can be used for meaningful public policy at a national and local level.
“We recognise that there are current challenges to the way in which statistics are produced and alternative data sources, such as administrative data, are being considered. We have concerns that this data may inadvertently reinforce inequalities in the production of statistics unless efforts are made to investigate systemic issues in how women use services differently to men.
“For example, transport data taken from tracking mobile phones overemphasises the needs of those who have one or more phones- such as commuters, and underrepresents the people without smartphones, who are more likely to be the low paid, or not working for any reason including the provision of care.
“Participation in events such as the UK Statistics Assembly is an important route to making these concerns heard and we look forward to further engagement with the Office of National Statistics and other statistical bodies so that current work on considering alternate data sources becomes an opportunity to produce better statistics for the public good.”
THE FULL REPORT CAN BE ACCESSED HERE