The Royal Statistical Society is to recognise the organisation that has made best use of official guidelines for statistics publication, outside their mandated use in official government data.
The voluntary application award will be handed out at the 2020 Statistical Excellence Awards and will be given in partnership with the Office for Statistics Regulation. Civil Service World is the media partner for the award.
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.
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The principles need to be applied in the generation of information classified by the OSR as official government statistics, but voluntary application means that organisation commits to the trustworthiness, quality and value pledges in how it produces and releases information even if the information is not classified as official statistics.
As such the award will be open to organisations outside government, as well as to government organisations publishing other types of information like research and open data.
Announcing the award, Baroness Onora O’Neill of Bengarve, the category's leading judge, said it was “an exciting opportunity for pioneering organisations that have voluntarily applied the OSR code to their statistics to gain additional recognition for their public commitment to high quality and trustworthiness”.
Ed Humpherson, director general for regulation at the UK Statistics Authority, added: “I am delighted this award for voluntary application has been created to recognise the fantastic work that has been undertaken by a wide range of organisations, in applying the principles of the code and enhance the public value for their users.”
Entrants will need to demonstrate how they meet each of the following criteria:
• A stated commitment to applying TQV in producing and sharing their information;
• Examples of how TQV have been applied to innovate or improve their information or processes; and
• A demonstration of how public value has been enhanced by their application of the pillars.
Hetan Shah, executive director of the Royal Statistical Society, said it was a vital to recognise the organisations leading the way on such measures.
“It's important that statistics are credible, and this award will highlight those organisations that are voluntarily holding their statistics to a high benchmark,” he said.
The winner and runners-up will be announced at the RSS’s annual Statistical Excellence Awards ceremony in London on 12 May.
Submissions can be made at www.rss.org.uk/va-award by 16 February.