The assessment of the Office for National Statistics’ Admin Based Population Estimates: Independent expertise

Narrative

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has published a new report about the new methods that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) are developing to produce population estimates for England and Wales, with the help of an expert from The University of Manchester.

The Dynamic Population Model is a new statistical model that aims to produce more-timely and accurate estimates of the population by age, sex and local authority. The DPM is part of ONS’s wider ambition to transform population and migration statistics and make more use of administrative data.

The report, aided by the expertise and guidance of Professor Arkadiusz Wiśniowski, an expert on Social Statistics and Demography, recognises the ambition of ONS in developing the DPM - an innovative method for estimating the population using administrative data. OSR has identified eleven requirements for ONS to improve the trustworthiness, quality and value of the ABPE:

- Developing and publishing criteria to support the decision about when the ABPEs will replace the MYEs, in consultation with key stakeholders such as the Welsh Government;
- Strengthening the governance structure and decision-making responsibilities for the production and development of the ABPE, and managing any risks associated with funding, capability and prioritisation;
- Publishing a plan for addressing the recommendations and suggestions in Professor Wiśniowski’s independent review of the data and methods used in the DPM.
- Understanding and quantifying the quality and uncertainty of the data inputs to the DPM, especially the Statistical Population Dataset (SPD) and the migration data, and implementing regular assumption checking and validation;
- Publishing more information on the quality and methodology of the ABPEs, including the strengths and limitations of the data sources, the coverage of special population groups, and the impact of data and methods changes over time;
- Improving its quality assurance process;
- Implementing and publishing a revisions policy for the ABPEs, based on user feedback and analysis of the scale and frequency of revisions;
- Creating and implementing technical and expert user groups to provide independent and external challenge and assurance on the methods used in the DPM;
- Developing and implementing a user engagement strategy specific to the ABPEs, to understand and meet user needs, communicate plans and updates, and manage user expectations;
- Being open to scrutiny from key stakeholders and users and responding appropriately to their feedback and queries; and
- Improving and tailoring the communication of the methods and quality of the ABPEs, considering the differing technical expertise of population statistics users.

These recommendations build on the positive progress ONS has made in publishing a suite of information related to these statistics today. Taking the actions outlined in the recommendations will ensure that users have more confidence in the new method, and therefore the ABPEs themselves.

Impact date	15 Jul 2024
Category of impact	Policy
Impact level	Engagement