Statistics Wales Demography newsletter: September 2023

On 29 June, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) launched a public consultation on proposals for a new approach to population and migration statistics (ONS). Your input is essential evidence for the National Statistician’s recommendations to government on the future of population and migration statistics, and the census. 

We encourage you to respond to the consultation and to circulate to anyone who may be interested. 

The consultation is easy to complete and is available in English (Consultation on the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales (ONS)) and Welsh (Ymgynghoriad ar ddyfodol ystadegau ar y boblogaeth a mudo yng Nghymru a Lloegr (ONS)). If you need any help to complete your response, you can email the ONS or contact them on 01329 444972. 

The ONS has produced an animated video available in English or Welsh (Trawsnewid y ffordd y rydym yn cynhyrchu ystadegau (ONS)) to find out more about why they are transforming the way they produce statistics.  The latest episode of the ONS’ Statistically Speaking podcast, also explores how the ONS has been working to transform the way they count the population, using new datasets to give more accurate, timely, and detailed measurements. It also discusses the consultation. 

The consultation will close on Thursday 26 October.

Additional information

Alongside the consultation, the ONS has released a comprehensive suite of research, providing users with evidence on the progress that they have made towards developing a new system to produce high-quality, timely population statistics with admin data at its core. 

These include:

• case studies (ONS), showcasing ‘real-life’ examples of what evidence users could access through a transformed system, covering Wales and England and five local authorities 
• a summary overview of the latest research (ONS), outlining the ONS’s assessment of the evidence against criteria that will support users responding to the consultation
• An assessment of the progress to date and future developments to produce statistics on population characteristics in the new system (ONS)
• Updated admin-based population estimates for mid-2022 (ONS), which are more timely and can sustain a better level of quality over time than census-based estimates, and latest methodological developments (ONS)
• Research on population subgroups, including veterans (ONS) and refugees (Early integration outcomes for refugees resettled in England and Wales: 2015 to 2021 (ONS)) (with methods) (Refugee integration outcomes data-linkage pilot : Census 2021 linkage methodology update (ONS))
• Progress update on the ONS’ research to develop income data that can be integrated with Census 2021, as set out in the Census 2021 White Paper
• Detailed evidence on the ONS’ methods and quality strategy (ONS)

The following articles, which also contribute towards the evidence base, have also been published:

• Health research - Comparing self-reported morbidity with electronic health records, England (ONS)
• Travel to work research – Estimation of travel to work matrices (Data Science Campus) 

Also released is the ONS blog on Growing confidence in our ability to move to a new population statistics system.

For information on Welsh language statistics, please see the Statistics Wales quarterly update.

Martin Parry

Telephone: 0300 025 0373

Email: stats.popcensus@gov.wales

Media

Telephone: 0300 025 8099