UK Statistics Assembly: Call for contributions

The UK Statistics Assembly brings together users, producers and stakeholders, to discuss and advise on the UK’s statistical priorities and user needs.   

It's important that the Assembly is informed by a variety of perspectives from across the statistics system.  

To ensure that the Assembly design and planning reflects a range of external views and benefited from their advice, experience and independence, an Assembly Delivery Group was established. Organisations represented on the group are: 

• Academy of Social Sciences  

• British Chambers of Commerce  

• Government Statistical Service  

• Joseph Rowntree Foundation  

• National Statistician's Expert User Advisory Committee representatives 

• Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency 

• Office for Statistics Regulation  

• Royal Statistical Society  

• Scottish Government 

• UK Research and Innovation 

• UK Statistics Authority 

• Welsh Government 

• Westmorland and Furness Council 

The Office for National Statistics provides the secretariat for the group. 

Ahead of the Assembly event on 22 January 2025, we held a call for contributions which ran for eight weeks between September and November 2024. This took the form of a short questionnaire. It asked for:  

• topic and cross-cutting theme discussion preferences  

• suggestions for agenda discussion items and presenters 

• examples of statistical and data priorities, gaps, and public and user needs

Who we heard from  

We were pleased to receive a wide range of quality contributions from a broad set of organisations and individuals. 

Some organisations submitted several contributions. We have broken down the number of organisations or individuals who submitted a contribution by sector, as follows.  

What we heard 

We asked contributors to indicate the top three topics and cross-cutting themes they would like discussed at the Assembly. The following lists are from most preferred to least preferred. 

Statistical topics in order of preference. 

• Economy and growth 

• Equalities 

• Health and social care 

• Population 

• Education, training and skills 

• Cost of living, poverty and prices 

• Employment 

• Environment and nature 

• Well-being 

• Business, trade and industry 

• Net zero 

• Family and community 

• Crime, justice and law 

• Migration 

• Transport 

• Housing 

• Skills 

• Agriculture and farming 

• Energy 

• Defence and armed forces 

Cross-cutting themes in order of preference. 

• Data linkage and integration 

• Regional and local 

• Data innovation and artificial intelligence 

• Communications and engagement 

• Quality 

• Methodology 

• Data ethics and privacy 

• Code of Practice for Statistics application beyond government 

• Code of Practice for Statistics revisions 

• International 

Contributors also described the topics and themes they felt most important to discuss at the Assembly, indicating their priorities, gaps and evidence of unmet user needs. The detailed qualitative feedback and evidence we received introduced some additional topics and preferences.  

In collaboration with the Assembly Delivery Group, we used the call for contribution submissions to develop a comprehensive, interactive agenda. It is designed based on the indicated preferences, as well as the detailed qualitative evidence from the call for contributions and further feedback. The agenda consists of 15 distinct discussion sessions, in three concurrent blocks of five, covering a range of statistical topics (such as health and economic statistics) and cross-cutting themes (such as data linkage and coherence). To facilitate attendee participation, each session is framed by a question. 

You can see the full Assembly agenda on the UK Statistics Authority website.

We thank everyone who contributed. Due to the high interest in this first Assembly and the broad range of subjects raised in the call for contributions, we could not include all the requests from all submissions on the agenda. All submissions will be shared with the National Statistician’s Expert User Advisory Committee for their report to the UK Statistics Authority Board.