RSS endorses regulator’s criticism of DfE stats claims

The RSS has issued a strongly worded statement regarding the Department for Education’s ‘misuse’ of statistics regarding government funding of education.

RSS President, Sir David Spiegelhalter, said: 'The Department for Education has had multiple warnings over the years about misusing statistics. For a Department that is in charge of the nation’s numerical skills, this is getting embarrassing. Ministers need to get a grip and ensure they use numbers in a trustworthy way.

'As the UK Statistics Authority has shown, DfE has recently been using statistics selectively, in a way that can rightly be termed “spinning”.’

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Conference 2018: Rapid-fire talk and poster prize winners

The RSS conference poster exhibition gives early career researchers the opportunity to present their research at conference, and talk about their work with conference attendees.

Last year, we introduced a new rapid-fire talks section for those new to presenting their research, where each speaker had five-minutes to present their research. This section proved so popular we integrated it as a key part of the conference. 

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New partnership to connect RSS volunteers to overseas projects

The RSS has just signed an agreement with the Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) to enable RSS fellows to volunteer their time and statistical expertise to help low-income countries develop their statistical systems.

PARIS21 is an international body established by the UN, EC, OECD, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank back in 1999 to promote better use and production of statistics throughout the developing world. The new agreement will allow RSS fellows to provide technical assistance to specific PARIS21 assignments to strengthen statistical systems in developing and emerging economies.

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RSS 2017 Conference shortlisted for major conference award

The RSS 2017 Conference has been shortlisted for an ABPCO (Association of British Professional Conference Organisers) Excellence Award for ‘Best Conference by an In-House Organiser’. 

The RSS is one of just three shortlisted organisations in this category – along with Diabetes UK and RenewableUK.

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Stats community honours Andreas Georgiou

The RSS is one of six international statistics organisations to present Andreas Georgiou with a special commendation recognising his work at the Greek statistical authority Elstat.

The commendation was given to the former Elstat president ‘for his competency and strength in the face of adversity, his commitment to the production of quality and trustworthiness of official statistics and his advocacy for the improvement, integrity and independence of official statistics’. It was presented to Georgiou personally at a meeting just prior to the International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) Conference in Paris earlier this month.

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RSS helps define new poverty measure

The RSS has helped the Social Metrics Commission (SMC) formulate a new poverty metric (PDF) which takes into account factors such as assets and ‘inescapable costs’ that can affect people’s spending power. The new data shows who is poor now and how that has changed over time, to provide a clear focus for policy makers.

The SMC, an independent non-partisan commission founded in 2016 by Baroness Stroud, brought together poverty specialists with data/analytical experts to develop a new approach to measuring poverty. RSS executive director, Hetan Shah, was one of the commissioners along with representatives from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

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Conference 2018: Building statistical capacity and filling data gaps

The breadth of the data required to measure the SDGs has tested even the most advanced statistical systems and this session looked at how governments and organisations are coming up with a variety of ways to fill the gaps.

Deirdre Appel from Open Data Watch (who also spoke at the conference’s session on gender data gaps) talked about building statistical literacy as well as capacity through the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With 232 indicators requiring data and some countries not even having a regular census or death registration statistics, there is a clear gap in capacity. Building partnerships between private and public sector/government is the aim, Deirdre said, but this will take resources and funding to achieve.

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