Statistics Wales quarterly update: June 2021

This is the latest in a series of quarterly updates, for users of Welsh statistics, on our latest developments, consultations and plans.

A full list of our most recent publications can be found on our upcoming calendar.

We continue to have adapted our usual operations to ensure we are able to support the government’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic, as well as providing the necessary information when it is needed the most. We will continue to use the Digital and Data blog to provide information on our approach.

We continue to publish an expanded range of datasets and releases to inform the public during the pandemic. With the number of coronavirus cases decreasing over the last few months, we are considering reducing the frequency of some of the COVID-19 related statistical releases. We welcome any comments or feedback on how you use the releases, and any changes to them via KAS.COVID19@gov.wales

An overview of which are now gathered together on our new COVID-19 in Wales interactive dashboard, which is intended to present a weekly snapshot of a selection of indicators on both direct and wider harms from COVID-19.

As usual more detail on these indicators and a wider selection of data can be found on our Coronavirus (COVID-19) related statistics and research page.

Since February we have also produced new or more datasets and releases on:

• antibodies data from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey
• characteristics of those on the shielding patients list identified using National Survey for Wales data: April 2018 to March 2019
• coronavirus (COVID-19) and the impact on disabled people

Public Health Wales also publish a comprehensive picture of new COVID-19 cases, deaths, vaccinations reported in Wales and now Lateral flow testing. These are published on the Rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard.

In March 2021, key economic statistics monthly release has been renamed to labour market overview. This release has continued to be published monthly bringing in a range of data sources to give the most up to date picture of the impact coronavirus is having on the labour market in Wales. We also publish a monthly headline on the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) and the self-employed income support scheme (SEISS) as published by HMRC.

Other releases are beginning to show the impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on the economy in Wales, such as regional gross domestic product (GDP) covering July to September 2020 and short-term output indicators covering October to December 2020.

In April, we published data on iron and steel production for 2020. We also published the latest labour market statistics (Annual Population Survey) and commuting in Wales (Annual Population Survey) for 2020. The Annual Population (APS) responses are weighted to official population projections. As the current projections are 2018-based they are based on demographic trends that pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic. The Office for National Statistics are analysing the population totals used in the weighting process and intend to make adjustments where appropriate. Rates published from the APS remain robust; however, levels and changes in levels should be used with caution. This will particularly affect estimates for country of birth, nationality, ethnicity and disability.

If you would like to get in touch please contact economic.stats@gov.wales

Schools

We continued to publish weekly data on pupils present in maintained schools throughout the second national lockdown.

As mentioned in the last update, the Pupil Level Annual School Census, Educated Other than at School Census and the Independent School Census were suspended in January as schools were closed during the national lockdown. Following the return of all pupils to school on 12 April 2021 the census date was set for 20 April 2021 for all three censuses. We are aiming to have the results available in September 2021.

If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback you can contact us on school.stats@gov.wales

Cross-cutting and post-16 education

In the last quarterly update we outlined our plans for reporting on post-16 learner outcomes. Following on from that we have now published a statistical article on outcomes for learners in post-16 education affected by the coronavirus pandemic. This covers a range of areas including outcomes, retention and progression for learners studying general education and vocational programmes in school sixth forms and further education colleges. It also covers outcomes for apprenticeships and adult learners during the period of the 2019/20 academic year affected by the pandemic and year 11 learners continuing into post-16 learning. We would welcome any feedback on the content or methodology.

We have published the 2020 update to statistics on levels of highest qualification held by working age adults. This update also underpins National Indicator 8 - Percentage of adults with qualifications at the different levels of the National Qualifications Framework.

In April we published the latest quarterly statistical headline on young people not in education, employment or training (NEET). This update includes data for our timelier, but less statistically robust, Annual Population Survey measure of NEETs as at the year ending December 2020. Further information on our NEETs measures can be found in our guide to understanding the different sources of statistics on young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) in Wales.

We have also published annual statistics on learner numbers in further education, work-based learning and adult learning for the 2019/20 academic year. Our apprenticeship learning programmes started dashboard has also been updated for quarter 4 of the 2019/20 academic year. The data for previous quarters in 2019/20 is now final.

Finally, our monthly publication of management information on apprentices furloughed or made redundant during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic continues. Whilst this data has not undergone the same level of quality assurance as official statistics, it does provide a timely indication of the extent to which apprentices have been affected by the pandemic.

In order to provide feedback, or for any further information, please contact post16ed.stats@gov.wales

Higher Education and Student Finance

Please contact us via our HE and Student Finance Stats mailbox.

Housing conditions

As a result of the pandemic and being unable to carry out surveys inside houses we have not been able to have a housing conditions survey in 2021-22 as we had previously anticipated and plans for a future survey are on hold. We are continuing to work with the National Survey for Wales (NSW) team as they plan the next survey contract and we are engaged with their topic development for the next NSW year to ensure housing and building related topics are included.

Within housing conditions the focus has shifted to progressing the Housing Stock Analytical Resource (HSAR) and seeking out opportunities for new datasets to improve the evidence base in Wales. We are planning to start publishing some statistical articles to demonstrate what statistics are available in the coming months.  

We are in the process of acquiring datasets that will help to monitor second homes in Wales at a local level and we are working with the Welsh Housing Quality Standard team in the development of the new standard and associated data collection that will be established to help the monitoring of this.

Fuel poverty is a key policy area for HSAR going forward. We are collaborating with policy colleagues and other government departments to improve the evidence base on fuel poverty in Wales, with the eventual aim of creating fuel poverty estimates using administrative data sources.

Our previous statistical releases can be found on the survey web pages.

Please contact us via the mailbox with any queries or requests.

Housing

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the housing data collections for 2019-20 were cancelled and several others were postponed.

Discussions have recently taken place between the data collection team, the housing analysis team and policy colleagues within the Welsh Government to consider how best to restart these collections. The data submission and publication timetable for housing statistical outputs has been reviewed and a draft timetable for 2020-21 data collections has been issued to data providers.

As part of the timetable for 2020-21 data collections, we are proposing some changes to that of previous years. Discussions regarding these changes are ongoing but we anticipate that plans will be finalised in due course.

Please contact us via the stats.housing@gov.wales mailbox with any queries or requests.

All our statistical releases are on the Statistics and research website.

For further information please email stats.healthinfo@gov.wales

NHS activity

Publication of monthly NHS performance and activity data continues, and continues to show the impact coronavirus has had on waiting times within the NHS.

The single cancer pathway has been renamed the suspected cancer pathway and a new dashboard has been published containing a wider list of performance measures by Digital Health and Care Wales (formally known as NWIS). These are experimental statistics and at present are published to give context to the main cancer performance measures included in the National Statistics release.

NHS primary and community health

New data for maternity and births in Wales was published in May. It provides a wide array of information relating to mother’s characteristics at initial assessment as well as data on modes of labour and birth. It also includes the latest data on one of the national indicators: low birthweight, which is also broken down by ethnicity.

Social Services

Requirements and submission dates for local authority social services data for the reporting year 2021-21 have been agreed and data collection is currently underway. This will be the first year of collecting metrics underpinning the new Performance and Improvement Framework for social services. Q&A sessions were held in April to support this data collection activity and were well-attended by local authority contacts. Groups are continuing to review the Children’s Censuses and develop an Adults Receiving Care and Support Census for Wales to be implemented in 2022-23.

During March the data science unit published a series of blogs covering their work on identifying clusters of deprivation; utilising new information on internet quality and building data science tools.

The Administrative Data Research Unit published new analysis linking the shielding population list with the national survey for Wales to look at differences in characteristics between those shielding and not shielding.

The Administrative Data Research Unit is currently leading two Administrative Data Research UK funded projects.  Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection (AD|ARC) is the first UK-wide data platform focused on agriculture which aims to link data on agricultural and land use activities, at the level of individual farms, with data on age, occupation, educational attainment and health of the relevant farmer (or farmers) and members of the farmer’s household.  The EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) Data Linkage Project is an ADR Wales initiative born out of the need to improve the evidence base on EU citizens in Wales who are part of the EU Settlement Scheme.  It aims to anonymously link Home Office data with other data already held within the SAIL Databank, enabling researchers and policymakers to better understand the experiences of EU citizens with Settled Status, and therefore to develop better informed policy and services that address the needs of this potentially vulnerable population.

The latest blog for AD|ARC has recently been published on the ADR UK website.

If you would like to get in touch please contact ADRUWales@gov.wales or DataScienceUnit@gov.wales

More in-depth reporting on 2019-20 results

We are continuing to report on the 2019-20 results in more depth, publishing a series of reports on specific topics.  The most recent report, based on the 19-20 results, on caring, was published on March 30th.

Reporting on 2020-21 and 2021-22 surveys

Results from October to December 2020 were published on 4 March.

The January to March 2021 results will be published in early July, and April to June 2021 results in the autumn.

We then plan to switch back to annual reporting, with a publication of the April 2021 to March 2022 results in July 2022. Please bear in mind that this plan is provisional and depends on how the situation progresses.

Future National Survey design

The survey will continue to be carried out over the phone throughout 2021-22, and we’re going to trial an online section (after the first, telephone, section) from July 2021 onwards.

We expect to extend the current survey contract so that the survey continues for 2022-23. During 2022-23, the survey is likely to be carried out by phone, possibly with an online section; but we will make a final decision by end 2021 on whether to return to face-to-face.

We’re now developing the survey design for future years, and will shortly commission a review to feed into this. If possible, the next contract to deliver the survey will begin with 2023-24 fieldwork, i.e. no gap year.

For any questions about the design of future surveys please contact surveys@gov.wales.

Poverty data

In March 2021 we published 2019-20 updates to annual poverty statistics on relative income poverty, persistent poverty, and material deprivation and low income. We also compiled a new 'Poverty related statistics' collection webpage, to help signpost users to key datasets and releases.

Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)

Due to availability and comparability issues for key datasets, there will be no updates to WIMD indicator data during 2021.

We continue to publish follow-on outputs for WIMD 2019. For the map-enthusiasts among you, there is now a new map profile for the WIMD 2019 spatial layers on DataMapWales (DMW).

Please refer to our ‘WIMD 2019 list of outputs’ for a full list of WIMD 2019 publications, including what is to come. If you want to receive notification of publication updates for WIMD, please email stats.inclusion@gov.wales to subscribe.

We are also able to provide information sessions on WIMD 2019, if you are interested in arranging this for your organisation or network please contact us to discuss. On June 10^th, we will be taking part in a Royal Statistical Society online event, open to all, on 'Using statistics to identify those most in need'.

Equality

In March we published a statistical article ‘Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the impact on disabled people’ which focused on areas where the impact of the coronavirus and the subsequent preventative measures may have disproportionately affected the disabled population.

These analyses were drawn together to support the work of a steering group commissioned by the Welsh Government’s Disability Equality Forum to consider and report on the impact of COVID-19 on disabled people in Wales.

Trade Survey for Wales (TSW)

The second year of the TSW (data relating to 2019) is now complete and results will be published in Summer 2021.  The aim of the survey is to improve understanding of trade flows into and out of businesses located in Wales. This includes goods and services that move within the UK as well as internationally. We have procured another wave of the survey, with IFF Research winning the contract to deliver TSW again in Autumn 2021.  This will collect data relating to 2020, which will include part of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as well as the lead up to EU exit.

Welsh Trade in Goods: publication review

Welsh Government statisticians intend to review its analysis and publication of HMRC trade data including which will affect the contents of the annual goods exports bulletin.

This release is produced using HMRC Regional Trade Statistics. Welsh Government have historically produced statistical bulletins which summarise HMRC quarterly and annual regional export statistics for Wales, the data is also made available on StatsWales. In reviewing the statistics we publish we aim to improve and streamline the analysis, and we want to engage with users to make sure we continue to meet their needs.

If you would like to be like to be involved in a review, or provide any feedback on any aspect of these statistics, please email stats.trade@gov.wales

In February 2021 we published our annual rail station usage release covering 2019/20 financial year rail station entries and exits. In March we published our public service vehicles bulletin followed by quarterly release of police recorded road accident provisional statistics covering the first two quarters of 2020. Our rail transport bulletin was published in April 2021 covering 2019/20. For feedback and comments please contact stats.transport@gov.wales.

On 31 March, the Annual Population Survey (APS) results on the Welsh language for the year from January 2020 to December 2020 were published.

From mid-March 2020, the APS survey has been carried out by telephone only. The ONS is continuing to monitor the impact of the change in survey mode on APS estimates and intends to make further revisions to the APS data for 2020 (following revisions to July 2019 to June 2020 estimates, and to April 2019 to March 2020 estimates). One reason for a further revision is that the APS estimates are weighted to national population projections. As the current projections are 2018-based, they are based on demographic trends that pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic. The ONS is currently analysing the population totals used in the weighting process and intends to make adjustments where appropriate. The percentages published from the APS remain robust. However, numbers and changes in numbers should be treated with caution. This will particularly affect estimates for country of birth, nationality, ethnicity and disability.

A separate Demography quarterly update is published which includes all things population related.

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