HMRC statistics quality improvement plans, April 2022 to April 2023
Updated 9 May 2022
© Crown copyright 2022
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/work-programme-for-hmrc-statistics-quality-improvement/hmrc-statistics-quality-improvement-plans-april-2022-to-april-2023
This note sets out the improvements we plan to make from April 2022 to April 2023 to the quality of HMRC’s statistics and the improvements we made from April 2021 to April 2022. The improvements are part of a longer programme of work to implement recommendations from the Office for Statistics Regulation’s review of HMRC’s official statistics, Strengthening the quality of HMRC’s official statistics.
There are 4 main areas of work:
- reducing statistics publication outputs
- documenting how statistics are produced, from data collection to publication
- streamlining and standardising statistics production processes
- making information on the quality of statistics more readily available
1. Reducing statistics publication outputs
We amended some 20 of HMRC’s official statistics publications, to reduce their content, or frequency or (for a few of our publications) drop them altogether, as described in this written response to a statistics consultation carried out in early 2021. We plan to consult on HMRC’s suite of official statistics publications again from the end of 2022.
2. Documenting how statistics are produced
We improved the documentation of the production process, from data collection to publication, of 40% of our statistics publications in April 2021 to April 2022. The documentation for the remaining statistics publications will be improved in April 2022 to April 2023.
This has been a high-level mapping exercise to identify the key stages in the production process and to document key components of what is done at each stage. This has helped us to identify the riskiest aspects of those production processes, which in turn has informed where to target future mapping activities and other actions to minimise the risk of errors or misinterpretation in the production process.
3. Streamlining and standardising statistics production
We have a programme of work to streamline or standardise the methods or tools used to produce our statistics publications. We are using a range of modern statistical tools and software development good practice to carry out all the steps of statistical production, from input data to the final output in a way that is sustainable and transparent and that fosters robust quality assurance processes.
In April 2021 to April 2022 we streamlined or standardised the methods or tools used to produce 40% of our statistics publications and in April 2022 to April 2023 we plan to streamline or standardise the remaining statistics publications.
In implementing these projects, we have drawn on principles outlined in the Office for Statistics Regulation’s report on reproducible analytical pipelines.
4. Improving availability of quality information
In April 2021 to April 2022 we made statistics quality reports easier to find on our statistics website and made it easier for users to find updates regarding issues with our statistics. We also improved the consistency and presentation of quality information for 55% of our statistics publications
In April 2022 to April 2023 we will complete work to improve the consistency and presentation of quality information for our statistics publications.
The actions planned may uncover mistakes in statistics production, for example in interpretation of data. We will keep users informed of any revisions to statistics, should the need to revise arise, in line with HMRC’s policy on revisions to statistics.