Justice Social Work Statistics in Scotland: 2023-24 – Part 1

Annex C Consultation and accreditation

The United Kingdom Statistics Authority (UKSA) designated the statistics in this publication as National Statistics. Under the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, UKSA had a statutory responsibility to conduct periodic assessments. This was to ensure compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. UKSA confirmed the National Statistics designation of justice social work statistics in assessment report 128 on the UK Statistics Authority website. The UKSA evolved into the Office for Statistical Regulation (OSR) in November 2016. The term ‘National Statistics’ has recently been retitled ‘Accredited Official Statistics’.

A data user review of justice social work statistics was conducted in 2023 and published on the Scottish Government website. This was done with the aim of engaging with a wide range of current and potential users of the data. The six main recommendations of the review were:

1. Improve the timing of published data – from 2024 onwards, the report will be split in two. This will allow some of the data to be in the public domain three to four months earlier.

2. Commentary to be changed to reflect some of the requests e.g., key points at the beginning of topics and more graphs/infographics to break up text.

3. Tables to be streamlined to allow filtering to make it easier to select different years and geographical breakdowns.

4. There were a number of requests asking for more data linkage. This would first require a review and likely changes to existing information governance arrangements, to ensure any future work in this area is compliant with data protection regulations.

5. Possible changes to the data collection method, possibly extending the use of the ProcXed.NET data platform to make data transfer between local authorities and Scottish Government more efficient.

6. Investigate and review the requests for additional data that relate to justice social work statistics.

This year the recommendations 1 to 3 are being progressed. This publication has been split and commentary reflects a number of the requests. The work of additional tables may take longer to put in the new format but it is hoped that this will be done by the second year of development. This includes placing more of this data on the Scottish Government's open data platform, the website for open access to Scotland’s official statistics.

Recommendations 4 to 6 will take longer to investigate and review. Progress will be updated in the next publication.