Statistics Wales quarterly update: September 2024
September 2024 update for users of Welsh statistics on our latest developments, consultations and plans.
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Introduction
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.
Well-being of Wales
We are preparing to update this year’s Well-being of Wales report, due to be published in late September 2024. Each year we aim to make improvements to the report. We are focussing this year on improving the use and impact of the report and aim to improve the narrative around the progress made over time of the national milestones.
For further information or to get in touch please email HighPriorityProjects.Stats@gov.wales.
Economy and labour market
Economy
The role of the Welsh Economic Statistics User Group is to engage with and advise Welsh Government analysts on strategic priorities and the work plan for economic statistics in Wales. The group forms part of the Welsh Government’s user engagement plan for economic statistics and provide an external perspective on statistics published under the Code of Practice for Statistics. It’s also a forum for sharing information. Past agenda items and presentations, as well as the terms of reference can be found online.
We are eager to extend memership of this group to a wider audience. If you would be interested in joining this group, which meets twice a year (either hybrid or online), please contact KASevents@gov.wales.
In June, we published the sub-regional productivity headline, which contained annual estimates productivity for Wales and sub-Wales regions in 2022. We also published our short-term output indicators release covering January to March 2024 in July.
The latest estimates of research and development gross expenditure for 2022 were published on 9 August 2024. We have also continued to update our Welsh economy in numbers dashboard.
If you would like to get in touch, please contact economic.stats@gov.wales.
Labour market
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) have highlighted that the challenges with maintaining response rates for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) continue to affect data quality despite the reweighting of the estimates. LFS-based labour market statistics are labelled as official statistics in development (Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)) until further review and we continue to recommend caution when interpreting this data.
We continue to publish our monthly labour market overview release, which brings together a range of different labour market sources. We recommend using the LFS data alongside the trends in these other measures of the labour market to gain a clearer picture of the impact different events have on the Welsh labour market.
ONS are introducing a new Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) which they plan to become the main data source for information on the labour market in the UK and Wales in the future. ONS’s TLFS and LFS progress update in July 2024 indicates that they will continue running both the TLFS and LFS for at least another six months, before assessing whether to move to the TLFS as the main source in published outputs.
In June we published our Annual Population Survey labour market statistics data for the year ending March 2024 which includes data for UK countries and regions and also for local areas.
Another output published in June was the quarterly update on young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) which covers data for the year ending March 2024 and provides more detailed and timely statistics on young people (those aged 16 to 24) who are NEET in Wales.
If you would like to get in touch, please contact labourmarket.stats@gov.wales.
Education
Schools
We continued to publish monthly data on pupils’ attendance in maintained schools throughout the summer term. The release will restart in the autumn with the first release scheduled for September.
The following statistical releases were published during June to August:
Final results from the School Census January 2024 were published on 31 July 2024
Pupils educated other than at school: September 2023 to August 2024 was published on 27 August 2024
Academic achievement of pupils at Key Stage 3: 2024 was published on 29 August 2024
Autumn statistical releases
October 2024
Provisional Examination results on 3 October 2024
Permanent and fixed-term exclusions from schools: September 2022 to August 2023 in October 2024
Absenteeism from secondary schools: September 2023 to August 2024 also in October 2024
December 2024
Final Examination results in December 2024
Absenteeism from primary schools: September 2023 to August 2024 in December 2024.
If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback on school workforce data, you can contact us on school.stats@gov.wales.
The latest available statistics from the School Workforce Census results are available for November 2023.
If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback on school workforce data, you can contact us on educationworkforcedata@gov.wales.
Post-16 education
Our recent publications have included the full statistical release of Jobs Growth Wales+ statistics for the 2023-24 financial year and the latest quarterly update on apprenticeship learning programmes started, covering quarter 2 of the 2023/24 academic year (November 2023 to January 2024).
In future a number of statistics in this area will now be produced by Medr, the new arm’s length body responsible for funding and overseeing post-16 education and research from August 2024. Some statistics remain the responsibility of the Welsh Government. Statistics on the highest level of qualification held by working age adults and Jobs Growth Wales+ will be led by the Labour Market statistics team. Statistics on youth work will be led by School Statistics.
If you have any questions related to further education, school sixth form, apprenticeship or adult learning statistics, please contact post16ed.stats@gov.wales, and your query will be passed on to the team in Medr.
Higher education and student finance
The two annual headline publications Graduate outcomes: August 2021 to July 2022 and Students in higher education: August 2022 to July 2023 were published in July and August respectively by the higher education and student finance team.
In order to provide feedback, or for any further information, please contact highereducationandstudentfinance.stats@gov.wales.
Housing
Since the last update, the following statistical outputs have been published:
Social landlord housing sales: April 2023 to March 2024 (published 30 July)
Homelessness accommodation provision and rough sleeping: May 2024 (published 25 July)
Social housing vacancies, lettings and arrears: April 2022 to March 2023 (published 25 July)
Dwelling stock estimates: as at 31 March 2023 (published 24 July)
Help to Buy - Wales (Shared Equity Loan Scheme): April 2023 to March 2024 (published 4 June)
Please contact us via the stats.housing@gov.wales mailbox with any queries or requests.
Housing conditions and fuel poverty
In July we published an annual update to our New house building statistics covering the period April 2023 to March 2024.
The Fuel Poverty dashboard that was published for the first time in June 2023 has been refreshed with the latest available external data that feeds into the dashboard, such as income and energy price data. A full update of all fuel poverty metrics in the dashboard is planned when all analysis has completed; this is expected to be next summer 2025.
Please contact us via the stats.housing@gov.wales mailbox with any queries or requests.
Health and social services
Hospital statistics
This quarter we updated our usual monthly update to our NHS activity and performance summary and this quarter we have published a new StatsWales table showing management information on Unique RTT patients by health board over time.
In addition we have been working with other colleagues across the UK to co-produce a comparability report on NHS planned care waiting times across the UK (ONS) which focus on providing greater insight on how these datasets can be compared across the UK and adds to a previous published comparability report on Accident and Emergency wait times across the UK (ONS) and Ambulance response time data in the UK (ONS).
As well as publishing further annual updates to statistics on NHS beds.
NHS workforce and expenditure
This quarter saw an update to our suite of quarterly NHS workforce statistics including; the General practice workforce, Staff directly employed by the NHS, Sickness absence in the NHS and NHS vacancy statistics.
Primary and social care
This quarter saw the publication of data on General practice activity for the first time including data on appointments, mode, type of practitioner and consultation; and other selected additional activities.
There was also an update to annual statistics on General practice disease registers, with data on disease prevalence based on disease registers maintained by general practices including dementia diagnosis.
Population health
This quarter we published additional analysis by pregnancy status for women aged 16 to 54 on adult lifestyle, general health and illness from the National Survey for Wales 2016 to 17 to 2019 to 20 for the first time.
There was also an update to annual statistics on Maternity and birth statistics, Breastfeeding statistics and the Healthy Child Wales Programme.
As well as publishing further ad-hocs on adults reporting body mass index 40 or more.
Other health and social services statistics
This quarter has also seen regular updates to mental health statistics on the Admission of patients to mental health facilities and Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010 and a range of other statistics including; eye care measures and smoking cessation services.
A number of other outputs are available from partner organisations including updates to the Public Health Outcomes Framework for Wales reporting tool from Public Health Wales and Substance misuse from Digital Health and Care Wales.
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.
National Survey for Wales
National Survey 2024-25 fieldwork is currently under way, with the first results to be published in July 2025.
Cost pressures, and the falling response rates that are being experienced by surveys generally, mean that the estimated achieved sample size for 2024-25 is 9,000 people (compared with the c. 12,000 a year achieved in previous years); and the final total may be lower. This will limit the scope for the analysis, which we know is vital to survey users, of small demographic and geographic groups. It also limits our ability to improve data availability by protected characteristics.
It has therefore been decided that fieldwork for 2025-26 will not proceed. Work has begun on a redesign of the National Survey for future years. In the autumn, Cabinet will discuss options for the survey redesign and at that stage we will send you a further update on the way forward.
Please contact us at surveys@gov.wales if you have any questions.
Social justice
Poverty
Following our annual data summaries on relative income poverty published in March, in June we published two ad hoc sets of tables in response to user requests:
- Population in relative income poverty, by the age of the youngest child for various breakdowns, FYE 2019 to FYE 2023
- Population in relative income poverty, by the head of household's location of birth and devolved nation, FYE 2020 to FYE 2023
Cost of living
On 25 July 2024 we published the third release in a new quarterly series of Discretionary Assistance Fund statistics, with more detailed breakdowns by age and local authority. We will continue to provide updates to the interactive dashboard presenting fuel poverty estimates and related data for Wales. These and other sources of data on the cost-of-living crisis are signposted in a Digital and Data blog that we published in December 2022. We will continue to work with relevant organisations to ensure that Wales-level data on key cost-of-living metrics are made available wherever possible.
Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)
We continue to work with our “domain groups” of experts to review proposals for indicators for the next index, planned for late 2025 / early 2026. Read our Digital and Data blog for further background on timing of the next index, what we’ve published recently, and the change in small area boundaries.
If you want to receive notification of publication updates for WIMD, please email stats.inclusion@gov.wales to subscribe.
Ukraine response
We continue to work with the ONS, Home Office, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and the other devolved governments to produce statistics relating to the Ukraine crisis.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, on 22 August 2024, published updated demographic data on the Ukraine Sponsorship scheme and the Ukraine Family scheme. These provide a breakdown of Ukrainians who have applied for or received visas or arrived in the UK with sponsors in Wales stratified by age and sex, up to 30 June 2024.
On 22 August 2024, HM Revenue and Customs and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government published employment data for Ukrainian nationals living in the UK between March 2022 and June 2024. This includes breakdowns for Ukrainian nationals living in Wales, by sex.
The weekly Ukraine Schemes visa and arrivals data (Home Office and UK Visas and Immigration) plus the fortnightly statistics on visa applications, visas issued and arrivals to the UK with sponsors in Wales continue to be updated.
Community safety
We are looking for feedback from users of our fire statistics. If you have an interest in any of the below statistical outputs, please contact us at stats.inclusion@gov.wales.
Fire and rescue incident statistics
Fire and rescue authority performance
Crime and justice
We published an update to our Interactive youth justice dashboard in August including data for 2022-23. Please send any feedback to stats.inclusion@gov.wales.
Equality
On 20 August 2024 open data spreadsheets were published on StatsWales with Census 2021 population data for equality characteristics by age, sex and local authority. These data tables include counts and percentages of people by ethnic group, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disabled and non-disabled people:
Further analysis focussing on disabled people’s employment and inequality from an intersectional lens will be undertaken later in the year.
We are also currently undertaking a refresh of the Equalities Data Audit. The purpose of this audit is to collate information on what is collected and published with regards to protected characteristics and other equalities related characteristics. This will be published in Autumn 2024.
Please email equalityevidenceunit@gov.wales if you have any feedback.
We published the January 2024 update to the Gypsy and Traveller Caravan Count in June, following a change in the system used to process the data.
We welcome any feedback around how you use the Equality and Diversity section of StatsWales, or what you want from Census 2021 data, at stats.inclusion@gov.wales.
Trade
Trade Survey for Wales
The analysis of the 2022 data was published 16 July 2024 and is available here: Trade Survey for Wales: 2022.
There will be a gap in data collection in 2024 which will allow the analytical team to conduct more in-depth analysis of previously collected data, and to revisit the business case for the continuation of the Trade Survey in future years.
Welsh International Goods Trade
Headline results from HMRC Regional Trade Statistics for Wales’s international goods trade for year ending March 2024 were published 13 June 2024. The associated StatsWales export tables are no longer being updates.
Alongside the above statistics, the interactive trade dashboard will be kept updated to the latest quarter’s data. Work is currently underway to update the dashboard, incorporating volumes data, and introducing accessibility improvements.
For further information contact: stats.trade@gov.wales.
Transport
In June 2024 we published our Police recorded road collisions: 2023 and, in July 2024, we published provisional estimates for Police recorded road collisions: January to March 2024 and updated our interactive dashboard, including breakdowns such as severity of injury, type of road user and collision location on a map.
We also published our Road lengths and conditions: April 2023 to March 2024 release on 28 August 2024.
For feedback and comments please contact stats.transport@gov.wales
Wales National Travel Survey
Transport for Wales (TfW) are developing a new Wales National Travel Survey, and an initial web-based pilot of the survey was conducted over a 4-week period during May and June 2024. A random sample of 7,500 households across Wales were invited to participate. Over 1,000 responses were received, in line with expectations.
TfW are currently analysing the results of this pilot in order to decide on the optimal design for the final survey and to make any required adjustments to the questionnaire and travel diary elements of the survey to ensure that they deliver against the data needs.
TfW will be conducting a second smaller scale pilot study of the survey between September and October 2024. This pilot will test the operation and delivery of the survey across all completion modes (web, telephone and face to face).
Further information about the aims and objectives of both pilot studies can be found in the WNTS Stage 1b: Qualitative and Quantitative testing report (TfW).
TfW are now in a position to start thinking about how the data will be published, once available. It is important that they present data effectively and in a way that users want. TfW have published a report detailing several publication options for topic-specific releases and are keen to hear your preferences.
Additionally, they are asking users to indicate their interest in different levels of geographic and demographic breakdowns. We want the order of WNTS publications to reflect what stakeholders view as high-value and relevant.
Any further comments, questions or feedback can be sent to the team at travelsurvey@tfw.wales.
Welsh language
Census 2021
On 30 July, we published analysis of the Welsh language by sexual orientation and gender identity using Census 2021 data.
A full list of Census 2021 outputs, including on the Welsh language, can be found on the Welsh Government website.
Annual Population Survey and our joint workplan with the ONS
The latest Welsh language data from the Annual Population Survey (APS) was published on 27 June. We also updated our StatsWales tables (Annual Population Survey: Welsh language) with the latest data.
Following the publication of the Census 2021 results, we have been working closely with the ONS on a programme of work which will look further at some of the differences we have seen between the census and some of our other data sources about the Welsh language, such as the APS.
An update on the progress of our joint workplan with the ONS was included in our latest APS release on 27 June.
Ad-hoc statistical requests
Data on Young people's attitudes towards the Welsh language from the Welsh Language Use Survey 2019-20 was published on 22 July.
Data on the Welsh language outside of Wales
Currently, there are no comprehensive data on Welsh speakers outside Wales that could provide an accurate picture of Welsh speakers in England or the rest of the UK. As part of our joint programme of work with the ONS, we will be documenting user requirements for data about the Welsh language outside Wales.
If you are a user of Welsh language statistics and have any thoughts on or requirements for data on the Welsh language for the population living outside Wales, please get in touch.
If you have any feedback or would like further information about any aspect of our work, please email: welshlanguagedata@gov.wales.
Agriculture and environment
Decarbonisation and climate change
June 2024
The 2022 Local Authority and Regional Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy) were published.
Please email stats.environment@gov.wales for further information.
Local government finance
Revenue budgets and capital forecasts
In June, we published details of local authority revenue budgets and capital forecasts for the 2024-25 financial year and associated revenue and capital data on StatsWales.
School budgets
In July, we published details on overall local authority school budgets and Special Educational Needs / Additional Learning Needs budgets for the 2024-25 financial year.
Council tax collection
In June, we published details of council tax collection rates for 2023-24 together with associated StatsWales tables.
StatsWales
Find out more information in this Digital and Data blog post: further update for StatsWales OData users.
Population and demography
For further information or to get in touch please email stats.popcensus@gov.wales.