ScotStat Board minutes: October 2025

Attendees and apologies

Board members

• Ana Basiri (AB)
• John Curtice (JC)
• Susan McVie (SM)
• Ken Roy (KR)
• João Sousa (JS)
• Lucien Staddon Foster (LSF)

Officials/speaker/observers

• Jason Zawadzki (JZ), Director of Census 2031, Office for National Statistics (ONS)
• Esta Clark (EC), National Records of Scotland
• Joy Preece (JP), Government Statistical Service Harmonisation Team
• Sharada Davidson (SD), University of Strathclyde
• David Smith (DS), Justice Analytical Services
• Mark Bell (MB), Justice Analytical Services
• Robert Cook (RB), Justice Analytical Services
• Scott Heald (SH), Public Health Scotland
• Ally McAlpine (AM), Chief Statistician
• Paul Matthews (PM), Head of Profession, Office of the Chief Statistician
• Lee Bunce (LB), Office of the Chief Statistician, Secretariat
• Amy Wilson (AW), Deputy Director Health Workforce Planning and Delivery, Secretariat
• Jemma Wilson (JW), Office of the Chief Statistician, Secretariat
• Sarah Bierbaum-Williams (SBW), Office of the Chief Statistician, Secretariat

Apologies

• Camilla Barnett (CB), Board Member
• Roeland Beerten (RB), Board Member

Items and actions

Actions from last meeting

AM updated the board that following a feasibility study on using administrative and banking data from Smart Data Foundry as an alternative to the ONS boost of the Labour Force Survey, the second round of procurement has been pushed to next year.

SH explained the publication of social care waiting times is moving to every two weeks and will provide a further update to the board at the December meeting.

AB and JC met with Sir Robert Chote, chair of UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) to discuss coherence of statistics, especially in census data.

AM, AB and JC met the previous Minister for Parliamentary Business to discuss the work of the ScotStat Board.

The board has written to the new Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans Graeme Dey with reflections on resilience of the 2031 census. The Minister has noted this letter and AM will raise it at his next meeting with Mr. Dey.

Update from the Chief Statistician

The Chief Statistician has met with the new Minister for Parliamentary Business and Veterans. The Chief Statistician discussed a number of issues of interest to the Board, including pre-release access, good communication of statistics, and the importance of producing statistics for the wider public good.

The Chief Statistician mentioned the system-wide cloud migration is progressing and will update the Board in the future.

AM reflected on the issue of UK statistical coherence and between ONS, UKSA, and the devolved administrations. AM is working on a paper on the topic of coherence of statistics across the statistical system for the UK Stats Board this month.

The Lievesley Review has resulted in 5 working groups and AM is chair of the working group on cohesion. The Board agrees that it will be useful to have a portfolio from each devolved nation of what statistics are being produced, including descriptions of data quality.

ONS Census preparations

ONS and National Records of Scotland (NRS) colleagues updated the Board on plans for Census 2031. There has been great progress on setting statistical design goals, developing underlying data structures, governance, collaboration, and external engagement. The main focus now is on preparing for a test in 2027.

The Board was encouraged by the coordination between ONS and NRS on methodology, operations, etc. The issue of harmonisation came up, especially with relation to topic consultation and testing different questions for different nations, success markers for the different nations, and the potential for a joined-up communications strategy to ensure the census lands well with the public.

It was acknowledged that the response rate cannot be the only measure of census success but is necessary to ensuring the required level of data quality. AB questioned if the role of administrative data as part of the new census approach could be greater and the Chief Statistician is committed to continuing this conversation.

The Board also touched on the importance of long-term investment in communications and engagement to secure public awareness and acceptance of the importance of the census (and of survey responses more broadly).

GSS Harmonisation Team work on Sex and Gender

The Board heard about the work of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) Harmonisation Team to develop harmonised standards for data on sex and gender. This work is currently near the end of the discovery phase which focuses on identifying user needs. A report on research results of this phase is due for publication in Autumn 2025.

The next phase of development will focus on iterative question development, cognitive interviewing, pop-up research, targeted survey trials, and re-analysis of large datasets. Results of this alpha phase are scheduled for publication in Autumn 2026. There was discussion about the risks that this timeline does not deliver guidance in a timely manner for some users.

Cross-organisational collaboration in regional socioeconomic data in the UK

Dr. Sharada Davidson, University of Strathclyde, shared findings of her study on how collaboration across the UK’s statistical system can be improved by better understanding of the degree of vertical collaboration within each nation.

Initial findings have identified the duplication of work as a big issue, but one that can be solved by close collaboration between ONS and devolved governments to streamline the UK statistical system and reduce duplication. Board members recognised a disconnect between local authority and national data; an example of overcoming this disconnect is the rolling out of the Community Health Index (CHI) across local government systems to facilitate greater opportunities for operational data linkage.

Pre-Release Access (PRA)

The Board considered arguments for and against keeping pre-release access to official statistics as summarised in a paper put forward by the Board Chairs. The Board considered options including retaining the current rules, reducing PRA to one working day, and removing PRA access in all but exceptional circumstances.

There was general agreement that the Board should recommend that:

• PRA should be reduced to one working day
• the list of those granted PRA should be limited and published
• there may be exceptional occasions when more than one working day’s access is required. The reasons for any such access should be made public

The Board recognised Scottish Government may need to invest in education to support the culture change that would be needed to implement this recommendation.

Consulting on Justice Statistics

As part of the Board’s workstream on how producers consult and engage with users, analysts from the Justice Analytical Services (JAS) presented their work to date on user consultation and engagement for their statistical publications. David Smith outlined the wide variety of JAS’s remit and historic approaches to user consultation. Mark Bell and Robert Cook described the impact of formal public consultation on three statistical products: police recorded crime, the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, and Justice Social work statistics.

The Board was impressed with the variety and level of user engagement JAS employs. The usefulness of this engagement is evident in JAS’s ability to shift publications to reflect user needs and the changing nature of crime, e.g. reporting on cyber-crime. The group discussed different methods for improving dissemination of JAS’s products as well as using data linkage to increase the granularity of crime statistics and provide insights at individual level.

Actions

• SH to update on social care data reporting at the December meeting, and include examples of work between PHS, COSLA, Improvement Service in this space
• JC and AB to put the Board decision on PRA into a paper for the Chief Statistician to present to Minister for Parliamentary Business
• Chief Statistician to provide a recommendation to Ministers on the future of PRA rules in Scotland
• Chief Statistician to discuss with SM data linkage of crime, education and health data via Administrative Data Research (ADR) Scotland