Statistics Wales quarterly update: March 2022

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 adapt 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. We are continuing to review the frequency and content of some of the COVID-19 related statistical releases. We welcome any comments or feedback on how you use the releases, and any suggested changes to them via KAS.COVID19@gov.wales

An overview of COVID-19 indicators is available on our 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.

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

We have continued to publish our monthly labour market overview release, which brings together a range of different labour market sources to give the most up to date picture of the impact COVID-19 continues to have on the labour market. Our Welsh Economy in Numbers dashboard has also been updated.

In December, we published new analysis on the labour market by protected characteristics for the period April 2020 to March 2021. This considers long-term trends as well as the more recent impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and provides more detailed analysis of key labour market indicators (employment, unemployment, and economic inactivity) for sub-groups of the population (including sex, age, ethnicity, disability, religion and marital status). We are keen to undertake more labour market analysis on equalities and would be interested in hearing your priorities.

The labour market statistics (Annual Population Survey) estimates for UK countries, regions, and local areas in Wales were published in January which covered data up to October 2020 to September 2021.

In January we also published industry breakdowns for business demography data on our StatsWales website and updated our short-term output indicators release for the third quarter of 2021. In February, we published the latest claimant count data covering January 2022 as well as data for Regional gross domestic product for April to June 2021.

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

Schools

We continue to publish weekly data on pupils’ attendance in maintained schools throughout the autumn term.

As noted in the previous quarterly update, data collections in the 2020-21 school year were delayed or suspended due to the pandemic. However, the 2021-22 school year should see a return to a more usual data collection and publication schedule for school statistics:

• Final GCSE and A level results from summer 2021 were published on 2 December
• The School Census, EOTAS and independent school census data collections were postponed from their original date of 18 January due to the pressures faced by schools and local authorities with the Omicron variant. All these collections went ahead on 15 February. We are still aiming to publish this data in August or September as usual.
• The collection of on-entry and KS3 teacher assessment data for 2022 has been confirmed to go ahead in May, with publication in August. No data will be collected this year for end of Foundation Phase or KS2 teacher assessments.

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

We have published a range of statistical releases over the last few months. Statistics on the maintained youth work sector for 2020/21 were published on 21 December 2021 whilst the latest quarterly update on young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) was published on 20 January 2022.

February saw the publication of two of our large annual releases. We published a statistical article on outcomes for learners in post-16 education affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic during the 2020/21 academic year. This covers a broad range of indicators across the whole learner journey, as well as final results. Breakdowns are also available by various learner characteristics. This follows on from a similar article published as last year and we also wrote an accompanying blog post highlighting some of the key findings. We also published annual statistics on enrolments and participation in further education, work based learning and adult learning for 2020/21. Alongside this we published data for quarter four of the 2020/21 academic year on apprenticeship learning programmes started which includes an update to our interactive dashboard. All previously provisional data for 2020/21 in this release is now final.

We have postponed our upcoming release, previously scheduled for February, on post-16 learner destinations due to an error in the data matching process. These statistics will now be published in April.

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

Higher Education and Student Finance

This quarter we have continued our weekly publication of Positive coronavirus cases reported to higher education institutions in Wales. We have also published our annual update to Students in higher education and Staff at higher education institutions.

Please contact us via our HE and Student Finance Stats mailbox: highereducationandstudentfinance.stats@gov.wales

Monthly management information on homelessness accommodation provision and rough sleeping continues to be published regularly as well as quarterly data on the Help to Buy – Wales (Shared Equity Loan Scheme).

In addition, a number of regular housing statistics outputs were published in December – these included:

• New house building: April 2019 to March 2021, 14 December;
• Homelessness: April 2020 to March 2021, 16 December;
• Affordable housing provision: April 2020 to March 2021, 21 December; 

Statistical releases on Demolitions, Housing hazards & licences, Assistance for housing improvement and Social housing vacancies, lettings and arrears are all due out in March 2022. All these releases will relate to the period April 2020 to March 2021.

The Office for National Statistics continue to publish monthly House Price Index data for Wales, the latest of which (for December 2021) was published on 16 February alongside data for the rest of the UK. 

Data on Land Transaction Tax continues to be published regularly by the Welsh Revenue Authority. The Welsh Revenue Authority recently achieved National Statistics status for these statistics, meaning that they meet the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

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

Housing conditions

In recent months we have continued to provide analytical support and advice on high priority topics including:

• work to update the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS)
• building safety
• energy efficiency of homes in relation to the climate change agenda, and planning for the future of the Warm Homes programme.
• Fuel Poverty Action Plan and the Cold Weather Resilience plan

A fuel poverty dashboard is in development which will bring together a range of data relevant to fuel poverty including data about energy efficiency of homes, warm homes scheme beneficiaries, energy tariffs , domestic metering and off grid households.

Alongside this, work continues to:

• refresh administrative data on housing that we already hold, identify further data sources and secure access to them; recent agreement has been reached on access to council tax data received by ONS.
• consider whether options for a future Welsh Housing Conditions Survey
• work with ONS on the use of administrative data on energy efficiency
• contribute to cross government groups on housing conditions, use of administrative data and fuel poverty.

Please contact us via the housing conditions evidence mailbox with any queries, requests or input on any of the above. stats.housingconditions@gov.wales

We continue to provide monthly updates on NHS activity including our monthly NHS performance and activity outputs, which continue to show the impact of coronavirus. Other reports recently published include NHS smoking cessation services, eye care measures, specialist children and adolescent mental health service first appointment waiting times.

This quarter has also seen updates to various aspects of primary care and community health including data on; substance misuse, the Healthy Child Wales Programme, breastfeeding, NHS dental activity and childhood immunisations and influenza immunisations. We also published a statistical article examining how the changes to the National Survey for Wales due to the coronavirus pandemic may have affected results for the health-related lifestyles and behaviours of adults.

We have also published this quarter updates related to the healthcare workforce and staffing including, staff directly employed by the NHS, sickness absence in the NHS and the GP workforce. As well as social care data on local authority registers of disabled people.

All our statistical releases are available on the Statistics and research website and more detailed underlying data is available on the Health and social care area of StatsWales

For further information or to get in touch please email stats.healthinfo@gov.wales.

This quarter has seen the beginning of work to develop the research programme for the next Administrative Data Research Wales (ADR Wales) investment period (April 2022 – March 2026) following the confirmation of £17m continuation funding for ADR Wales.

We have also submitted bids for additional funding to extend our flagship farming data linking project, Administrative Data | Agricultural Research Collection (AD|ARC) and for a new project to build a cross-cutting research-ready dataset of deprivation indicator data at the person/household level.

We have continued to support the supply of Welsh Government microdata to the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank to enable these datasets to be securely accessed by researchers for the purpose of data analysis projects for the public good.

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

Reporting

The telephone survey for 2021-22 will conclude at the end of March, and we will publish the data and reports for the full year in July. This will incorporate the responses from the early results for April to July 2021, and mark a return to annual reporting of the main survey.

From July 2021 the National Survey ran an online trial which included a short follow-up online section containing questions that are designed for self-completion or are sensitive. The trial was a success and we will publish results for a sample of 2,000 respondents later this year covering topics like mental-wellbeing, repair and recycling, climate change behaviours, physical punishment of children, gambling, and global citizenship.

National Survey contract 2023-24 onwards

The National Survey contract with ONS is coming to an end with 2022-23 fieldwork and so the team has been busy preparing to procure a new contractor from 2023-24 onwards. Deciding the best design for the National Survey from now on has not been straightforward, but we see this as an opportunity to review and revise the design and methodology of the National Survey in light of recent developments in the field.

We’ll let you know more about the proposed design and procurement soon, but in the meantime do not hesitate to get in contact if you have any questions.

Content review

Over the next few months, we will be reviewing National Survey content to ensure that it still meets the needs of survey users for the next contract. This will include reviewing core topics, health topics, national indicator questions, need for equalities data and other repeat topics for which agreements are in place. Agreements on the frequency of topics included in the survey will be updated. Please get in contact if you have any questions about National Survey content.

Please contact us via the National Survey mailbox: NationalSurveyBranch@gov.wales

Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)

We have streamlined and updated our postcode and small area (LSOA) to geography lookups on StatsWales. The updated postcode to LSOA (small area) and WIMD rank lookups now contain new postcodes in Wales.

The updated ‘LSOA to different geography groups’ lookup now includes an LSOA mapping to primary care clusters. This is in addition to the LSOA mapping to other geography aggregations already contained in the lookup e.g. Local Authorities, Local Health Boards, MSOAs, Rural Urban Settlement Classifications etc.

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 yourself, your organisation or network please contact us to discuss. Our first sessions were held on 4 November and 8 December 2021.

Equality

We published Equality and Diversity statistics: 2018 to 2020 on 20 January 2022. This release includes updates to population estimates by ethnicity, disability status, religion and marital status, which can all be found on StatsWales. Data is sourced from three years of pooled Annual Population Survey (APS) data. Our quarterly APS-derived population estimates by ethnicity and national identity will also receive their next update in early March.

In December 2021 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published experimental population estimates for England and Wales by ethnic group and religion. These estimates for 2019 were produced by combining data from three years of pooled APS data, the 2011 Census and mid-year population estimates, and are not comparable to our own estimates derived from the APS alone.

The ONS also published Outcomes for disabled people in the UK: 2021 which includes disaggregated data for Wales in five of its seven areas of analysis: education, employment, housing, well-being and crime.

Please email stats.inclusion@gov.wales for more information.

Equality, race and disability evidence units

We recognise the importance of evidence on equality in developing policies which address the often deep rooted issues which adversely impact those with protected characteristics. Whilst there is much data available, there are gaps in granularity of data with respect to minorities and intersectionality.

The Welsh Government has established three distinct Units, each with their own evidence programme and lead.

• Equality Evidence Unit
• Race Disparity Evidence Unit
• Disability Disparity Evidence Unit

The Units will work together as the Equality, Race and Disability Evidence Units with an overarching strategic evidence plan to ensure synergy. The plan is in development with key stakeholders and will be shared publically in summer 2022.

For more information contact: EqualityEvidenceUnit@gov.wales

Community safety

Our six-monthly Fire and rescue incident statistics update will be published in early March.

Trade Survey for Wales (TSW)

The third Trade Survey for Wales (TSW) fieldwork closed in December 2021. The results are now being validated and analysed by the contractor. Results will be published in May 2022.

We are planning to carry out further work on the survey, including additional significance testing of the published results and re-weighting of responses to produce sector estimates for food and drink.

In-depth follow-up research will also be conducted with businesses who agreed to re-contact based on their responses to the TSW. This will gather a deeper understanding of answers to the Mode 5 and Rules of Origin questions.

We will also be working with the contractor to design a small experiment on the use of incentives where business have proven hard to engage in previous years.

Welsh International Goods Trade: New dashboard

The Trade Analyst team remotely hosted a Masters Placement student who has developed a new dashboard based on HMRC’s Regional Trade in Goods data. This will be published on Welsh Government pages in March 2022.

We published a statistical bulletin on Motoring Offences in 2020 in January 2022 which includes data on fixed penalty notices, court proceedings, drug and drink driving offences, and breath tests. It considers the impact Covid-19 restrictions had on motoring offences in 2020.

Our Police recorded road accident dashboard was published on 10 February 2022 to include the January to June 2021 data. This dashboard provides an interactive view of the police recorded road accident information.

For feedback and comments please contact stats.transport@gov.wales

Welsh Language Use Survey 2019-20

On 17 February, data on Welsh language use in the home and in education from the Welsh Language Use Survey 2019-20 were published (for the period July 2019 to March 2020). The analysis reports on the use of Welsh in the home and the relationship between the ability of Welsh speakers and the ability of their parents. It also reports on who is currently learning the language, what the language of their education was at school or in further and higher education, as well as information about those who have learned as adults.

This is the second bulletin using the data from the survey. Initial findings from the Welsh Language Use Survey 2019-20 were published on 14 September 2021. The statistics were revised on 17 February following a change in the methodology that calculated the percentage of the population who could speak Welsh. This has meant a slight revision to the percentage of the population aged three or older who can speak Welsh fluently for 2019-20, and some revisions to the data for 2013-15. The initial findings reported on how often Welsh speakers speak the language, how well and where they have learnt the language. It also included data for the national indicator on the use of Welsh.

We are planning to publish further analyses of Welsh language use in the community, in the workplace and with services in due course, combining with data from the National Survey for Wales 2019-20 where relevant.

Annual Population Survey

On 27 January, the Annual Population Survey (APS) results on the Welsh language for the year from October 2020 to September 2021 were published.

According to the survey, 29.5% of people aged three or older in Wales were able to speak Welsh (this figure equates to around 892,500 people) for the year ending 30 September 2021.

The next update, for the year ending 31 December 2021, will be published on 31 March.

The census is the authoritative source for the number of Welsh speakers in Wales, and this is how we will measure progress against the ambition of having a million Welsh speakers by 2050. The Office for National Statistics will begin publishing 2021 Census data from late May this year.

Email: WelshLanguageData@gov.wales for further information.

Municipal waste quarterly estimates for April to June 2021 were released on 22 February. Data on farm incomes in 2020-21 will be released on 17 March.

On 2 February, the first iteration of the Subnational indicators explorer was published on the ONS website, following on from the launch of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) subnational data strategy in December. This interactive tool can be used to explore a basket of subnational indicators and to compare local authorities in the UK. All the data are already publicly available and links to the original data sources are provided in the accompanying dataset and data download.

In January, ONS released interim data for the 2020-based national population projections.

For further information or to get in touch please email stats.popcensus@gov.wales

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

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