Government statisticians are once again being invited to vie for the Royal Statistical Society’s annual Award for Statistical Excellence in Trustworthiness, Quality and Value.
Now in its fourth year, the award is being run in partnership with Civil Service World and the Office for Statistics Regulation and recognises organisations that have voluntarily adopted the Office for Statistics Regulation’s code of practice.
The award will recognise excellence in the voluntary application of the “pillars” of trustworthiness, quality and value outlined in the OSR’s code of practice for statistics.
Last year’s award went to the UK Health Security Agency’s Covid-19 Dashboard Team, who the judges said “demonstrated a real commitment to trustworthiness, quality and value that stand at the heart of the code of practice for statistics”.
The dashboard publicised the number of Covid cases and vaccination rates across the UK, and became the main trusted source of data on the pandemic. More than a million people used the dashboard each day at its peak, including ministers, officials and the general public.
Launching this year’s nominations, RSS chief executive Stian Westlake said: “It is only right that organisations voluntarily applying the code of practice to their work are celebrated for their commitment to producing statistics that are transparent, robust and enhance public value.
“We’ve seen some fantastic work so far and no doubt we’ll see some excellent projects again this year.”
Ed Humpherson, director general for regulation at the OSR, said he was looking forward to seeing this year’s entries, following a “strong field of previous finalists and superb projects leading the way”.
“I’m always hugely impressed how different organisations use and apply the principles of the code, to successfully demonstrate the highest level of trustworthiness, quality and value for their users,” he said.
Award nominations are open until 5 May.