Statistics Wales quarterly update: December 2024

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.

The annual Well-being of Wales report was published on 26 September 2024. The report provides an update on wellbeing in Wales to help us assess whether we are making progress against the seven national well-being goals set out in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015. The report considers progress against the 50 national indicators, alongside a range of other relevant data. The report is a key accountability mechanism, to be transparent about the progress Wales is making towards its well-being goals.

As in 2023, an easy read Well-being of Wales report has been published in addition to the main report to help ensure everyone is able to access statistical information about Wales.

As we approach the 10 year anniversary of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, we have considered how we can continue to provide new insight and improved ways of communicating progress towards the well-being goals. Building on feedback from users, this year we are experimenting with a new way of showing progress, focusing on the 17 national milestones. The milestones are generational targets which describe the pace and scale of change needed in key areas under the seven well-being goals. We have looked at the data for each milestone since 2015, which was when the Well-being of Future Generations Act came into force, and assessed whether the trend has been improving or not since that date.

You can read more about the approach we have taken in the national milestones chapter of the Well-being of Wales report.

For further information or to get in touch please email HighPriorityProjects.Stats@gov.wales

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 provides an external perspective on statistics published under the Code of Practice for Statistics. It’s also a forum for sharing information. The group met in October – items included a presentation from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) on their systemic review of economic statistics and updates on the transformation of the labour force survey, the annual population survey and the development of input output tables. Past agenda items and presentations, as well as the terms of reference can be found online.

We are eager to extend membership 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 October, we published our short-term output indicators: April to June 2024 which shows the short term movements in the output of industries in the production, construction and market services sectors. In November, we published our business demography release for 2023 data. 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. As a result LFS-based labour market statistics will be labelled as official statistics in development (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 is continuing to test some further design improvements for the TLFS and have indicated that they will report on progress in Spring 2025.

In addition to the monthly labour market overview, we published the annual update to Regional gross disposable household income for 2022 in September which provides information on the amount of money that individuals in the household sector have available for spending or saving.

October was a busy month with a number of publications as across different areas. We published our Annual Population Survey (APS) labour market statistics data for July 2023 to June 2024 which includes data for UK countries and regions and also for local areas. Annual statistics from the APS on the participation of young people in education and the labour market for July 2023 to June 2024 were also released.

Both of these outputs were previously classed as accredited official statistics. The APS has seen a fall in sample sizes over recent years, given this and the fact that the survey has not been reweighted to latest population estimates, the OSR agreed that this accreditation should be temporarily  suspended and that the estimates should be re-designated as official statistics (OSR).

Latest data from the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) was also published in October, providing information on average hourly, weekly and annual earnings for 2024. 

At the beginning of November we updated our Business Register and Employment Survey release for 2023, presenting employee and employment estimates. BRES employment estimates are usually published at the UK level, however, the 2023 provisional BRES employment estimates cover Great Britain only as estimates for 2023 are not yet available for Northern Ireland. The ONS plan to update the 2023 statistical release with UK estimates by early 2025.

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

Many statistics on post-16 education have now transferred to Medr. 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.

Schools

Attendance data

We continued to publish weekly data on pupils’ attendance in maintained schools throughout the Autumn term with the first publication on 19 September. The release was weekly up until the October half term and then fortnightly up until Christmas. The release includes further detail on long term trends in education before and after the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

We also published data from the statutory annual attendance data collection from secondary schools. The release Absenteeism from secondary schools: September 2023 to August 2024 was published on 1 October.

Data from the statutory annual attendance data collection for primary schools will be published on 12 December.

Other statistical releases

The following statistical releases have also been published in the Autumn:

Pupils educated other than at school: September 2023 to August 2024 on 12 September

Academic achievement of pupils at Key Stage 3: September 2023 to August 2024 on 29 August. Due to the rollout of the new Curriculum for Wales, this is the last in the series of outputs providing results from the old National Curriculum Teacher Assessments.

Provisional Examination results September 2023 to August 2024 on 3 October, with final examination result due to be published on 5 December.

Permanent and fixed-term exclusions from schools: September 2022 to August 2023 on 31 October

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

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

Higher education and student finance

We’ve continued to publish our monthly statistics on Student support applications for higher education and Education Maintenance Allowances (EMA) awarded in Wales.

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

Since the last update, the following statistical outputs have been published:

Homelessness accommodation provision and rough sleeping: August 2024 (published 31 October)

Help to Buy – Wales (Shared Equity Loan Scheme): April to June 2024 (published 15 October)

Statistics on households applying to local authorities for housing assistance and local housing authorities’ activities under the Housing (Wales) Act 2014 (UK legislation): April 2023 to March 2024 (published 5 September) 

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

In September we published a quarterly update to our New house building statistics covering the period April to June 2024.

In this quarter, we also published an article on council tax chargeable second homes in Gwynedd and Dwyfor, to provide baseline insights into the Dwyfor second homes and affordability pilot. This article highlighted changes in the number of second homes liable for council tax between 13 April 2023 and 13 April 2024 as well as movement between council tax classifications during the period (e.g. from second home to primary residence).

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

Hospital statistics

This quarter we updated our usual monthly update to our NHS activity and performance summary and this quarter we have published two new statistical outputs including a deep dive on NHS performance for each Welsh Local Health Board and on NHS cross-border care between Wales and England in collaboration with NHS England.

In addition, Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW) have published updated data on Hospital admissions.

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 NHS dental services which contains various new insights and analysis due to an improvement in the data submission.

There was also an update to annual statistics on Community pharmacy services, with data on pharmacies, prescriptions dispensed and pharmaceutical services offered.

Population health

This quarter we published an update to annual statistics on Flying Start including for the first time insight into the expansion of the programme.

Quarterly updates were also provided for Breastfeeding statistics and the Healthy Child Wales Programme.

Other health and social services statistics

This quarter has also seen regular updates to a range of other statistics including; Mental Health (Wales) Measure 2010, Eye care measures and Smoking cessation services.

A number of other outputs are available from partner organisations including updates to: Cancer incidencefrom Public Health Wales, Substance misuse from DHCW and regulated Care services and places regulated by the Care Inspectorate Wales from Care Inspectorate 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

Please contact us at surveys@gov.wales if you have any questions.

Gambling

In October, we published the gambling bulletin, which contains analysis on the proportions of people who gamble in Wales, and explores some of the characteristics associated with gambling, based on responses to the 2022-23 National Survey for Wales.

Transport

The transport bulletin will be published on 11^th December. The bulletin will explore how people in Wales use different modes of transport, and how satisfied they feel with public transport, based on the 2022-23 National Survey for Wales.

Poverty and cost of living

In October Welsh Government published a Child Poverty Strategy monitoring framework and independent expert review. The framework outlines how data will be used to track progress of the Child Poverty Strategy. A review of the framework was conducted by independent academic expert, Professor Rod Hick.

On 14 November 2024 we published the fourth release in a 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 have published a report on proposed indicators for WIMD 2025, alongside a series of questions on SmartSurvey seeking user views. The survey is now open for response and will close on 16 December 2024.

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 28 November 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 September 2024.

On 28 November 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 September 2024. This includes breakdowns for Ukrainian nationals living in Wales, by sex.

The Ukraine Family Scheme, Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme (Homes for Ukraine) and Ukraine Extension Scheme visa data (Home Office) will cease to update from 28 November 2024. The figures on this page will remain but they will no longer update. Instead, Home Office will be publishing their Ukraine data quarterly via the following publications:

• Safe and Legal (Humanitarian) routes to the UK (Home Office)
• Immigration system statistics data tables (Home Office)

The publication Ukraine Sponsorship Scheme: Visa data by country, upper and lower tier local authority (Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) will move to a quarterly update from 28 November 2024.

Community safety

We have published the following publications related to fire statistics:

Fire and rescue authorities operational statistics: April 2023 to March 2024 (31 October) 

Fire and rescue incident statistics (28 November)

Fire and rescue authority performance (28 November)

We have also announced the following publication dates:

Grassland fires (19 December 2024)

Deliberate fires (19 December 2024)

We are looking for feedback from users of our fire statistics. If you have an interest in any of our statistical outputs, please contact us at stats.inclusion@gov.wales.

Crime and justice

There were no new publications related to crime and justice this quarter. Please send any feedback or requests to stats.inclusion@gov.wales.

On October 17 2024, we published Gypsy and Traveller caravan count statistics for July 2024.

Please email equalityevidenceunit@gov.wales if you have any feedback.

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 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 due to budgetary pressures, but this will also 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 June 2024 were published 12 September 2024. Welsh international goods trade: 2023 was published on 17 April 2024, which contained further analysis of the 2023 data. The associated StatsWales export tables have stopped updating with the completion of the 2023 data, due to the recent update of the interactive dashboard. 

Alongside the above statistics, the interactive trade dashboard will be kept updated to the latest quarter’s data. Work to update the dashboard to incorporate volume data, and introducing accessibility improvements, was completed September 2024. 

For further information please contact stats.trade@gov.wales

In October, we published provisional estimates for police recorded road collisions: April to June 2024 and updated our interactive dashboard, including breakdowns such as severity of injury, type of road user and collision location on a map. The provisional estimates for police recorded road collisions for July to September 2024 are due to be published in December. 

In October, we also published Road freight: 2023 which shows data about imports and exports to and from Wales that were carried by road using UK registered heavy goods vehicles. In November, we published our sea transport 2023 release and, in December, we published our motoring offences 2023 release. 

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

Wales National Travel Survey

Transport for Wales (TfW) are preparing to launch the new Wales National Travel Survey (WNTS) in early 2025. Analysis of the results of the first web-based pilot undertaken in May and June 2024 has informed the survey design and methodology. Details of the developments have been published on the Research and development section of the WNTS website (TfW).

A second pilot of 900 households was conducted during September and October 2024, and 372 responses were received. This pilot tested the operation and delivery of the survey across all completion modes (web, telephone and face to face). TfW are now analysing the data flowing from this second pilot and will introduce improvements to survey processes and systems ahead of the launch of the mainstage survey.

Further information about the aims and objectives of both pilot studies can be found at Research and development (TfW).

During September and October 2024, TfW contacted WNTS stakeholders to seek their views and preferences on potential WNTS data publications. A report analysing stakeholder has been published on TfW’s website and can be found at Stakeholder engagement (TfW).

Any further comments, questions or feedback can be sent to the team at travelsurvey@tfw.wales 

Annual Population Survey

Welsh language data from the Annual Population Survey (APS) for the year ending 30 June 2024 was published on 09 October. We also updated our StatsWales tables (Annual Population Survey: Welsh language) with the latest data.

These estimates were previously classed as accredited official statistics. The APS has seen a fall in sample sizes over recent years. Given this, and the fact that the survey has not been reweighted to latest population estimates, the OSR has agreed that this accreditation should be temporarily suspended and that the estimates should be re-designated as official statistics (OSR).

Welsh language use survey

We intend to publish the remaining data tables for the Welsh Language Survey 2019-20 soon. These spreadsheets will include additional breakdowns to accompany the existing topic summaries. Once published, the tables will be available to download under the relevant thematic heading on the Welsh Language Use Survey webpage. Data tables on Welsh language use in the workplace and Welsh language use with service providers are already available.

Ad-hoc statistical requests

Data on frequency of speaking Welsh by local authority and age group for the year ending 31 March 2024 from the Annual Population Survey were published in response to an ad-hoc statistical request on 30 September.

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.

Decarbonisation and climate change

Latest annual figures on local authority waste collection and recycling were published on 31 October.  Covers the period from April 2023 to March 2024. Used in monitoring progress of Welsh local authorities towards their recycling targets. 

Please email stats.environment@gov.wales for further information.

Revenue and capital outturn expenditure

In October, we published details of local authority revenue and capital outturn expenditure for the 2023-24 financial year and associated revenue and capital data on StatsWales.

School reserves

In October, we published details on overall local authority school reserves as at 31 March 2024 and full detail by individual school on StatsWales.

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

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