Statistics Wales quarterly update: September 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 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. With Wales now at Alert Level 0, we are considering changing 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 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 cases, deaths, vaccinations reported in Wales and now variant surveillance. These are published on the Rapid COVID-19 surveillance dashboard (Public Health Wales).

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. We have also published the latest data on the coronavirus job retention scheme (CJRS) and the self-employment income support scheme (SEISS). Our Welsh Economy in Numbers dashboard has also been updated.

In August we published estimates of Research and Development gross expenditure (2019) as well as estimates of regional gross domestic product covering the last three months of 2020.

In July, we updated our short-term output indicators release to cover the first quarter of 2021, as well as publishing estimates of sub-regional productivity in 2019.

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

Schools

We continued to publish weekly data on attendance of pupils in maintained schools throughout the summer term. Data collection and publication with restart for the 2021 autumn term, initially on a weekly basis as before.

The School Census, ‘Educated Other than at School’ Census (EOTAS) and the Independent School Census were suspended in January 2021 as schools were closed during the national lockdown. Each census was successfully held on 20 April 2021. Final results from the school census were published on 9 September 2021. Results from the other two censuses will be published later in September. If you have any questions or would like to provide feedback you can contact us on school.stats@gov.wales.

School Workforce Census results for November 2020 were published on 26 August 2021. If you have any questions or feedback on the school workforce census you can contact us at EducationWorkforceData@gov.wales.

Cross-cutting and post-16 education

Our annual statistical release on participation of young people in education and the labour market and the related statistical bulletin on young people not in education, employment or training, both normally published in July, are due to be published on 22 September this year due to the reweighting of the Annual Population Survey.

In June we published annual statistics on the maintained youth work sector for 2019/20. This release was originally postponed from October 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Our management information reports on apprentices furloughed or made redundant during the coronavirus pandemic have moved from being monthly to every two months, with the latest data published on 7 September. We will soon be stopping this release in line with the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

In August we published provisional data for quarter 2 of the 2020/21 academic year on apprenticeship learning programmes started which includes an update to our interactive dashboard. Finally, our statistical bulletin on staff at further education institutions 2019/20, originally published in July, has been removed due to issues identified in the data submitted by some providers. A revised report will be published as soon as possible.

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

Higher education and student finance

We have published our annual statistical releases on initial teacher education and Welsh language in higher education.  Our weekly update on positive coronavirus cases reported to higher education institutions in Wales was paused over the summer due to the majority of students having left campus and/or the local area for the summer. The collection will recommence from the beginning of September to account for the Autumn semester and students returning to study, with the first update being published on Tuesday 7 September 2021.

Please contact: HigherEducationAndStudentFinance.Stats@gov.wales

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

Publication of housing statistics are still affected by the decision during the COVID-19 pandemic that many of the housing data collections for 2019-20 would be cancelled and several others postponed. Data on the progress made by social landlords in achieving the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS) for their stock (as at 31 December 2020) is due to be published on 15 September, with data on Social landlord stock, rent and sales due out in the autumn.

The timetable for and detail of some data collections for 2020-21 are still under review. Advice will be provided to data providers when decisions are finalised.

The Office for National Statistics continue to publish monthly House Price Index data for Wales (GOV.UK), the latest of which (for June 2021) was published on 18 August alongside house price data for the rest of the UK (ONS). 

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

Housing Condition Evidence Programme (HCEP)

Now most of the HCEP team are fully back from working on COVID related things the Programme is being rebooted, refreshed and refocused. Given the ongoing situation with household surveys in the context of the pandemic and post pandemic innovations HCEP will be concentrating on the Housing Stock Analytical Resource (HSAR) – bringing admin data and Management Information (MI) together from a number of providers to give an individual property record of variables. There will inevitably be a need for future Welsh Housing Conditions Survey, but these will remain periodic and evolve over time as our admin data pool grows.  We also exploring the potential to expand the scope of the Programme to cover non-domestic buildings.

Below is our outline work programme for the remainder of this financial year, and onwards.

Housing Stock Analytical Resource

• Map and gap data/MI held in WG across housing/planning etc.
• Assess quality and bring into HSAR.
• Refresh data already held, identify further data sources and secure access to them.
• Undertake demonstrator projects to explore data quality and analytical potential.
• Provide responsive analysis on high priority topics such as energy efficiency and building safety.
• Enable access to HSAR for other analysis to utilise data collated.

Collaborate with other analytical programmes

• Work with ONS on the use of administrative data on energy efficiency, as part of the Integrated Data Programme.
• BEIS development of fuel poverty measures.
• BEIS buildings survey.
• Contribute to cross Government groups on conditions, admin data, fuel poverty.

Welsh Housing Conditions Survey

• Begin to look at options for future surveys: is one needed, if so when; method; what can be covered sufficiently through admin data; link to other WG social survey or standalone; cover all sectors or focus on gaps in admin data (such as the owner occupied sector)?

Our previous statistical releases can be found on the Welsh Housing Conditions Survey web pages.

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

Publications

Results on adult lifestyle from the National Survey for Wales January to March 2021 were published on 22 July.

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 activity and performance data continues, and continues to show the impact coronavirus has had on waiting times within the NHS, as well as how activity in emergency services has increased.

A new section called ‘statistician’s comment’ has been added to draw out the key points in around 150 words only.

NHS primary and community health

The first data from the new Quality Assurance and Improvement Framework (QAIF) was published in June. This includes a new interactive dashboard and disease register information at national, health board, cluster, and GP practice level.

Quarterly StatsWales releases for both breastfeeding and Healthy Child Wales Programme data were published on 25 August.

The annual statistical release for the Health Child Wales Programme was also published on 25 August.

Stats releases for prescriptions, community pharmacies, GP workforce, NHS dental activity and workforce and sensory health have been announced for publication in September and October.

Social Services

Data collection is currently underway for local authority social services data for the reporting year 2020-21. This will be the first year of collecting metrics underpinning the new Performance and Improvement Framework for social services based on the refreshed Code of Practice issued in April 2020.

Alongside academics in Cardiff and Swansea, ADRU has recently been working through a recommissioning process to secure funding for 2022-2026. In addition to our existing research areas of Early Years, Housing, Mental Health, Skills and Employability, Social Care, Emerging Government Priorities, we are proposing to add two new standalone themes of Climate Change and the five harms of Covid, a new cross cutting social justice/equalities theme. We are still waiting on final approval but initial feedback has been positive.

Alongside this, we have continued to contribute to the Technical Advisory Cell's Covid analyses and are taking forward an education and crime data linking project commissioned by Ministers. We are looking to obtain item level homelessness data from pilot LAs in order to upload the data to SAIL.

Separately, our EU Settlement Scheme Data Linking Project had its first steering group meeting and the AD|ARC agriculture project has been working with agricultural analysts across the UK to produce a consistent core agricultural dataset in each of the four countries which can be accessed by academic researchers.

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

Reporting on 2020-21 and 2021-22 surveys

Results from January to March 2021 were published on 1 July,

The National Survey continues as a telephone survey and we will publish the April to June 2021 results in October. We then plan to return to annual reporting, with a publication of the full-year April 2021 to March 2022 results in July 2022. 

Blog post

You may also be interested in a recently-published blog from the Chief Statistician Stephanie Howarth on how the survey has been delivered during the pandemic, and how we’re starting to plan for the future.

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

Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD)

During June we refreshed our guide to analysing indicator data to reflect the new indicators included in WIMD 2019, and on 26 August we published an article on deprivation relating to young children. 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.

Equality

We have updated tables on sexual orientation statistics from the 2019 Annual Population Survey.

Following temporary suspension of the bi-annual census counts of Gypsy and Traveller caravans in 2020 due to the pandemic, a decision was taken in early 2021 to fully discontinue the count. However we have developed a new statistical output sourced from the All Wales Caravan Count online collection. The first data from this new source, relating to January 2021, were published on 30 June.

Trade Survey for Wales (TSW)

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. Results from the Trade Survey for Wales, 2019 were published on 31 August 2021, along with accompanying data tables, quality and technical reports.

Fieldwork collecting 2020 data will launch September 2021, with a pilot survey going to 300 businesses on the 13 September, and mainstage fieldwork launching from the 27 September to an additional 7,700 businesses. Fieldwork will continue until December, with results available Spring/Summer 2022. This will collect data relating to 2020, which will include trade effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as well as the lead up to EU exit.

Welsh Trade in Goods: publication review

A Cardiff University master’s student intern is working on a project to visualise HMRC trade in goods data, this should be made available on the Welsh Government website by the end of 2021.

Furthermore, the routine outputs from this dataset is currently under review. If you would like to be like to be involved in the review, or provide any feedback on any aspect of these statistics, please email stats.trade@gov.wales

Longitudinal Small Business Survey

Analysis of the 2019 Longitudinal Small Business survey (LSBS) was commissioned and published in late June. This is an annual survey run by BEIS. Data is available at the Wales level, although sample sizes are low which means more granular breakdowns (into business size or sector) can be difficult. As a result of Welsh Government interest in this project, BEIS have agreed to double the number of Welsh SMEs in the sample (from 400 to 800 businesses) for the 2021 survey. This should enable a more granular analysis of the findings for the Wales based respondents.

Analysis of Wales’ exporting behaviours of Small and Medium Enterprises: Autumn 2020

A brief article was published in late June outlining the Analysis of Wales’ exporting behaviours of Small Medium Enterprises, based on some data collected through the Beaufort Business Omnibus Survey.

We have recently published estimates of road traffic and air transport in Wales in 2020 which show the impact COVID-19 had on travel across Wales.

We have also published estimates of police recorded road accidents in 2020, together with the accompanying interactive dashboard.

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

Please see the Demography quarterly update, which includes the latest updates on Welsh language statistics.

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

Regular series of outputs from agriculture

• Summary of areas of land and numbers of livestock from the Welsh Agricultural Survey at June each year
• Farm incomes from the Farm Business Survey
• Aggregate Agricultural Account (components of output and costs at the Wales level)
• Annual report on municipal waste collection and destination

Theses outputs are planned to be updated in the next quarter; except the Aggregate Agricultural Account which will be in the new year.

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Email: stats.info.desk@gov.wales

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