Statistics

  • Improving the Speed and Accuracy of Agricultural Statistics

    16th February 2022 by

    Sunrise over a field of vegetable crops demonstrating the dawn of new coding and improving the speed and accuracy of agricultural statistics

    This month, the team are looking at improving the speed and accuracy of our agricultural statistics. They focussed on the computer code and the time taken from receiving data to producing statistics. And, we are learning from gaming and software development. In simple terms, it is a way of coding that removes errors. It also...

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  • Analytical exchange programme 2022

    31st January 2022 by

    by Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician The Analytical Exchange programme matches analysts working in Scotland with voluntary sector organisations requesting help around data, analysis, statistics and research on very short, sharp projects. These can be anywhere between an afternoon to 10 working days. Individuals or small groups of statisticians, economists or researchers then act as analytical...

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  • Scottish Government Assistant Statistician Recruitment

    25th January 2022 by

    Scottish Government recently launched a recruitment campaign for assistant statisticians at B1, B2 and B3 grades.  We are recruiting for a variety of roles across the stats group across all grades.  We have statisticians working in all parts of Government, from economy to education, from the Census to climate change, from housing to health.  The...

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  • Sign up to the new ScotStat

    17th January 2022 by

    By Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician, Scottish Government. Keeping users of our statistics informed of the latest developments such as new publications, events or consultations is a crucial task for our statisticians. One of the key ways we do this is through ScotStat, our email notification system. I’m pleased to announce then that we are investing...

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  • Changes to COVID-19 case reporting

    13th January 2022 by

    From today, 13 January 2022, in addition to reporting the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 through a PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test, we will also begin reporting a combined figure for the number of people who have recorded a first positive PCR or an LFD (lateral flow device) test. This change in reporting...

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  • Women in Statistics

    25th November 2021 by

    Daoud Sharif and Christina Coakley at the RSS Conference

    RESAS statisticians recently attended the Royal Statistical Society Annual Conference in Manchester. This month’s blog is written by Christina Coakley, Senior Assistant Statistician. Chrissy is now leading the analytical work to replace the June Agricultural Census. She also led the RESAS delegation at the RSS Conference. Here, she talks about her highlights from the conference...

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  • Agricultural Statistics Transformation Programme Begins

    29th October 2021 by

    Beginning next month, my unit is stepping up work on our ‘Agricultural Statistics Transformation Programme’. I previously spoke about the last December Survey and now we are looking at our other data products. By engaging with internal staff and a wide range of stakeholders across Scotland and the UK, we will improve the data we...

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  • An Introduction to the Equality Data Improvement Programme

    30th September 2021 by

    I’m Roanna Simpson, an analyst in the Equality Analysis Team within the Scottish Government. Our team leads on a new Equality Data Improvement Programme (EDIP) and this is the first in a series of blogs aimed at providing an update on the progress of this work. The new EDIP is a multi-phase programme of work...

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  • Sex and Gender in Data

    22nd September 2021 by

    By Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician, Scottish Government. Today I am publishing the guidance on sex and gender in data. This is for those who collect data, covering how they should think about what data they need, and some standard approaches to collecting and publishing this data. This is an important contribution to my aim of...

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  • Making Better Use of Data for Land-Use and the Environment

    13th September 2021 by

    Picture of Scottish Agricultural Landscape in a hilly upland region. The picture is taken in Summertime and has a field of cows in the foreground. It is taken from a wide-lens and conveys the theme of making better use of data for land-use and environment

    In this blog I will talk about work we are doing to make better use of data and evidence for land-use and the environment. I am also calling out to environmental and land-use analysts to get involved. Previously I wrote about improving the use of data that we hold with projects like data linkage. This...

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