Statistics
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Working with producers of statistics
19th September 2024 by lisaclark
This is the second of two blogs published by the Office of the Chief Statistician in Scottish Government in response to recommendations of the Independent Review of the UK Statistics Authority by Professor Denise Lievesley. Through the blogs we touch on the purpose of Government statistics which are fundamental to open and transparent government and...
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Serving the needs of users of statistics
12th September 2024 by lisaclark
This is the first of two blogs published by the Office of the Chief Statistician in Scottish Government in response to recommendations of the Independent Review of the UK Statistics Authority by Professor Denise Lievesley. Through the blogs we touch on the purpose of Government statistics which are fundamental to open and transparent government and...
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The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the latest survey sweep
12th August 2024 by lisaclark
The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to stop face-to-face interviews for the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (SCJS) along with the other household surveys. When fieldwork restarted in November 2021, remaining restrictions meant we had to conduct the survey differently. But we didn’t know if this would affect the quality of the data collected, who would...
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Council Tax Comparisons between Scotland and England – Coherence Blog
11th July 2024 by lisaclark
This blog represents part of our themed month to support coherence in statistics. Often, we hear statisticians refer to coherence in the context of the ability to compare statistics across different parts of the UK, or other geographies. Jon Hunter in Scottish Government’s Local Government Analytical Unit describes his recent work to improve contextual information...
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Updating our statistical geographies – Data Zones, Intermediate Zones and ITLs
10th July 2024 by Lee Bunce
Geography plays an important role in the production of official statistics. Everything happens somewhere, and presenting our statistics geographically is crucial to ensuring that statistics can properly support citizens and policy makers to make informed decisions about communities. It is important then that we ensure the geographical boundaries we use in our statistics remain fit...
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Resetting the focus: how we’re making statistics in Scotland better
20th May 2024 by paulmatthews
by Paul Matthews, Senior Statistician in the Office of the Chief Statistician. I used to play tennis a bit when I was younger. Definitely not at a Murray level (!), but I found it fun. I wasn’t the sporty type, so it was rare for me to find something I enjoyed. Back then it was...
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Tell us what you think: review of the Scottish Care Experience Survey Programme
12th March 2024 by Office of the Chief Statistician
We are reviewing the Scottish Care Experience Survey Programme. The programme includes a suite of national surveys which provide local and national information on the quality of health and care services from the perspectives of the people using them. The programme currently consists of four surveys: The Health & Care Experience Survey (HACE) covers GP...
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Join the new ScotStat Board – help improve Official Statistics in Scotland
2nd February 2024 by Ally McAlpine
Update: the deadline for applications has now been extended to 4th March 2024. Building trust in our statistics is fundamental to the work of statisticians, as mentioned in my previous blog. Central to building trust is regularly engaging with our users. In this blog I am offering the opportunity for people who have a keen...
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Our plans for small area statistics – consulting on Data Zones and Intermediate Zones
26th January 2024 by Lee Bunce
The publication of statistics at a local level is important so that citizens and policy makers can make better informed decisions about their local communities. To support the production of small area statistics it is vital that we have solid statistical foundations in place. In Scotland, the statistical building blocks we use are Data Zones...
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New publication: Time Use in Scotland 2023 – analysis by sex
8th November 2023 by maisybest
Last week, the Scottish Government’s Equality Analysis team were pleased to publish Time use in Scotland 2023 – analysis by sex. In this blog we’d like to tell you about the publication and some of the key findings. The Online Time Use Survey (OTUS) is a UK-wide survey commissioned by ONS and gathered by NatCen Social...