The Office for National Statistics began consultation on a range of options for changing the way the retail prices index was calculated so that it was more closely aligned with the consumer prices index.
Source: National Statistician s Consultation on Options for Improving the Retail Prices Index, Office for National Statistics
Links: Consultation document | ONS press release | BBC report
Date: 2012-Oct
The report of a review said that there was a need to ensure that housing market statistics were more easily accessible and better placed in the context of related statistics. There should be an (at least) annual article on key trends in the United Kingdom housing market to aid this. In some instances, local area statistics were not available or were not timely enough to be of use: in these cases, the ability to make local area statistics available or timelier should be investigated further. A gap also existed in official private rental statistics: official private rental statistics and a private rental price index should be developed for the UK.
Source: National Statistician's Review of Official Housing Market Statistics, Office for National Statistics
Links: Report | ONS press release | RSS press release
Date: 2012-Sep
A report by a committee of MPs said that scrapping the 10-yearly national Census could harm social science. Other methods of data collection might not be adequate or any cheaper.
Source: The Census and Social Science, Third Report (Session 2012–13), HC 322, House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Additional written evidence | British Academy press release | BBC report | Times Higher Education report
Date: 2012-Sep
A think-tank report said that better use of data, technology, and analytics could help the government save 'up to £16-£33 billion' a year by improving efficiency rather than reducing service levels.
Source: Chris Yiu, The Big Data Opportunity: Making government faster, smarter and more personal, Policy Exchange
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release | Guardian report
Date: 2012-Jul
The government published a White Paper on plans to make data held by the public sector more accessible and usable. It included commitments to take the following measures:
Public data principles would establish that public data policy would be driven by the public and businesses who wanted and used the data.
Open data released by government would be marked against a scheme for data quality and reusability.
There would be a complete overhaul of the data.gov.uk website to include better search facilities, and simpler ways to access information.
Open data strategies were simultaneously published for individual government departments.
Source: Open Data White Paper: Unleashing the Potential, Cm 8353, Cabinet Office, TSO
Links: White Paper | Cabinet Office press release | DCLG strategy | DE strategy | DH strategy | DWP strategy | Home Office strategy | MOJ strategy | RSS press release
Date: 2012-Jun
A think-tank report said that all non-personal data held by the public sector should be made available to the public for free. Doing so would cost the government around £50 million a year in lost fees and charges: but the overall benefits to the economy would far outweigh this.
Source: Chris Yiu, A Right to Data: Fulfilling the promise of open public data in the UK, Policy Exchange
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release
Date: 2012-Mar