Adam Al-Nuaimi, Head of Data Analysis and Lead Official for Statistics, Welsh Revenue Authority.
At the Welsh Revenue Authority (WRA), our small data analysis team supports the organisation internally – sharing data to inform our operational teams, who are managing our tax services. Our team also publishes official statistics about the 2 devolved Welsh taxes we collect and manage, Land Transaction Tax and Landfill Disposals Tax.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) is a significant challenge to our organisation, like other wider government organisations in Wales. It may impact on usual WRA operations, including our ability to publish official statistics.
We hope to follow our pre-announced timetable for publishing statistics. However, we may need to reduce or change content, especially if our staff resources are reduced through illness or are deployed elsewhere to support wider Welsh Government.
If we need to reduce content or change our timetable, we will be transparent about this. We will use our release calendar to explain what those changes are. While we may have to give less notice of changes than normal, we will remain guided by the Code of Practice for Statistics. We will make sure our statistics are of public value, high quality and can be trusted.
We produce our statistics using data from the digital system underpinning the taxes. For one of our taxes, Land Transaction Tax, we could see a reduction in the numbers of property transactions as social distancing measures take effect. This will in turn impact our statistics. We are currently planning to include information about any changes in our April 2020 release. We will review our future publications after that.
The Office for Statistics Regulation has also issued a statement about its approach to regulating our statistical work at this time.
For any general queries about our statistics, please email us via data@wra.gov.wales.