Review of

Geography Policy for National Statistics

Andy Tait

GSUF

12 March 2014

Geography Policy for National Statistics

What?

Standards and best practice guidance for using geography to produce official statistics

Why?

official statistics are accurate, consistent and comparable, for the geographic element

How?

ONS Geography delivers products and services for producers of official statistics to comply with the policy

Geography Policy for National Statistics

• Mandated since July 2010

• Owned by GSS Regional and Geography Committee (RGC)

• Ratified by GSS Statistical Policy and Standards Committee (SPSC)

NS Geography Policy: status

Promote comparability …by…adopting common standards…(including common geographic referencing standards).” (Code of Practice, Principle 4 (7))

Geography Policy – a recap

• Referencing your data

• Stable small area building blocks to build National Statistics

• Standard Coding and Naming of statistical geographies

• Defining the currency of geography

• Standard Area Measurement

• Presentation Order

address, postcode, grid reference tools

Output Areas/Super OAs best fit to other geographies

GSS codes

as at 31st December of a year

• Rural-urban

NS Geography Policy

• Referencing your data

• Stable small area building blocks to build National Statistics

• Standard Coding and Naming of statistical geographies

• Defining the currency of geography • Standard Area Measurement • Presentation Order

7 pillars of the policy

Pillar 1 - Referencing

Reference at low level, GB grid ref, id object Change - use the UPRN – national address key Change - OA/LSOA/MSOA - residential Workplace Zone - workplace Change - national park exception as exact-fit

Use NS Postcode Lookup (NSPL) to reference in

line with policy

ANN NNNNNN

Area entity eg UA E06 Alpha - Country

Unique instance Eg Portsmouth 000044

Went live on 1 January 2011

Pillar 2 – Coding and naming

• Boundary changes become effective on 1st January, reflecting changes operative before 31 December

Maintenance Process

Boundary Products

2011 2012 2013

Jan Dec Jan Dec Jan Dec

Changes to wards in 2011 Changes to wards in 2012

Ward boundary 2011 Ward boundary 2012

Changes to wards in 2013

Ward boundary 2010

Pillar 3 – Currency and versions

Pillar 4 – Output statistics for a geography

• OA to target geography best-fit, using OA centroid

• Use 2011 OAs/SOAs as building blocks

• Compare 2001 base and 2011 base OAs: • no change • exact splits • exact mergers • no exact mapping ×

But what about very small target geographies like parishes?

© Crown copyright and database rights 2014 Ordnance Survey 100019153

Statutory ward boundary Adeyfield West. E05004692

Display statutory boundaries to accompany statistics

© Crown copyright and database rights 2014 Ordnance Survey 100019153

E05004692 Adeyfield West WD best fitted to OA boundaries

Don’t display boundaries best-fitted to OAs to accompany statistics

Pillar 5 – Standard Area Measurements

Use OA based measurements for a geography when used as a denominator in population density Aligns with estimates produced as best-fit from OA.

Pillar 6 – Classifications

Rural-urban classification Output Area classification Area classification

Workplace Zone classification

Pillar 7 – Presentation

Presentational order Refer to presentational order guidance documents Presentation of maps – simple guidance of best practice: Appropriate map type for the data Titles, legend, labelling, marginalia Symbology Presentation of boundaries Display statutory boundaries, not those best-fitted from OAs

Winterbourne Herringstone CP (Dorset) One OA, 2 + Parishes One OA which includes four perfectly nesting parishes. Only one can of course, contain the OAPWC.

Geography Policy Review: consult and communicate

“Bottom-up” review

FINISH

START

GSS 30/4/14

Statistical Policy and Standards Committee

GSS 24/3/14-15/4/14*

Regional and Geography Committee

RSS/Public 1/2/14-12/3/14*

Stats User Net community + Twitter

ONS 20/1/14

Statistical Geographies Advisory Group

ONS

ONS Geography Programme Board

GSS 12/3/14

Geography Services User Forum

Survey monkey Survey monkey

ONS ONS Geography

(Stakeholder) Date of approval

*= by correspondence/forum

(Approval body)

ONS 13/2/14

Statistical Policy Group