Migration Statistics User Survey

The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) is examining the topic of migration statistics, as part of a programme of work on statistics and their use in government.  The PASC call for evidence is here: http://tinyurl.com/czwc3wg.

The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and the Statistics User Forum (SUF) will be submitting evidence to PASC in January.  It is important that this represents the views of the widest possible set of users, and to this end the RSS has put up a survey here to collect opinions:

 

http://surveys.rss.org.uk/v.asp?i=66134lennv

Your response to this survey will be a key input to the overall RSS and SUF response to PASC.  Please complete this survey by Wednesday 9th January to allow time for collation of views by the RSS and SUF.

 

IInforming Voluntary Sector Research: How can official statistics be improved?

Tuesday 15th January 2013
5pm, at the Royal Statistical Society (12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX)
Tea/coffee available from 4.30

The voluntary sector already plays a significant part in our society and the sector is being asked to play a greater role in public service delivery, such as education, justice and health. To do its job well, the voluntary sector needs statistics: to help it frame the subject it is addressing; to use in bids for resources; to help allocate resources, monitor performance and assess impact. Many larger voluntary sector organisations produce their own statistics, but they and others also rely on statistics from government. This event provides the opportunity for researchers and statisticians to feed into discussions about the adequacy of current statistics and engagement between the voluntary sector and government statisticians, and to hear about the Community Life Survey and recent research into the knowledge and skills of the voluntary sector, in terms of handling data analysis, risk and evaluation.

•             Representatives of voluntary sector users and official statistics producers will discuss the adequacy of current statistics and engagement between the voluntary sector and producers of official statistics, and ideas for improvement. To be followed by audience discussion / Q&A.

•             Update on progress with the Community Life survey - Rebecca Wyton, Office for Civil Society.

•             Data Capacity in the Voluntary Sector - David Walker, Getstats Director, RSS.

Attendance is free and open to all, but pre-registration is recommended. To register for the meeting, please email events@rss.org.uk.  For a map and directions, see www.rss.org.uk/findus. For further information, contact Jouni Kuha at j.kuha@lse.ac.uk.

Migration Statistics User Forum - presentations available

Presentations from the Migration Statistics User Forum conference on 18th September 2012 have been made available in the filestore area of the JISCMAIL list, which should be accessible via:

https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/filearea.cgi?LMGT1=migration-stats&X=44C1E1405FE43182B9&Y

Given the success of the event conference facilities have been provisionally booked for an annual meeting on 17 September 2013. There was a consensus that future meetings should be more focused on how users have used data on migration. To join an electronic distribution list for Migration Statistics click here

 

Call for papers - Crime surveys user meeting

Thursday 13 December 2012

Royal Statistical Society, London

The next crime surveys user meeting is being organised by ESDS Government for Thursday 13 December 2012. ESDS Government are inviting offers of presentations based on analysis of the UK crime surveys, e.g. the Crime Survey for England and Wales (formerly the British Crime Survey), Offending, Crime and Justice Survey or the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey. Presenters will have 20 minutes for their talk followed by 10 minutes for questions.

Details of previous user meetings are available at www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/types/user/.

Please send offers of a paper, including a 200-word abstract, to gillian.meadows@manchester.ac.ukas soon as possible but by 21 September 2012 at the latest.

 

Launch of new Health Statistics Users' Group website

The Health Statistics User Group (HSUG) has launched a new website: http://www.hsug.org.uk/.

Resources available on the website include presentations from the 20th Anniversary conference which can be found under 'HSUG material'.

The content on the site is accessible to all, but registration is reqiured in order to take active part in discussions, post comments and initiate discussion threads. Registering will enable you to receive regular updates about new material on the site.

The new site has been developed in partnership with the Royal Statistical Society in its development of StatsUserNet  <http://www.statsusernet.org.uk/> as a way of improving user participation in official statistics. Being part of StatsUserNet allows you to look at, and become involved in, discussions not only on health statistics but also related statistical areas such as Census and Well-being.

The site also gives access to all the material that were available on the old site.

Olympics – participation, performance and legacy

3 July 2012, 5pm,

Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX

With the London Olympics about to begin, we recognise the important contribution statistics make in the measurement of sporting participation, the improvement of sporting performance and in measuring the lasting impact of the Games.

The speakers will be:

Andrew Spiers, Sport England

Measuring public participation in sport including the challenges of collecting data for detailed estimates in a social survey

Beverley Hale, University of Chichester

Studies and statistics leading to advances in performance-based knowledge and success in an Olympic Setting

Alex Wilkinson, Department for Culture, Media and Sport

Describing the plans for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Meta-Evaluation which will look across a large number of surveys, programme and project-level evaluations and other studies to measure the impacts and legacy of the Games.

Tea/coffee served from 4.30pm. Attendance is free and open to all, but pre-registration is

recommended. You can register by emailevents@rss.org.uk or by phone (020) 7638 8998.

For further information about the meeting, contact Charles Lound (charles.lound@ons.gov.uk). For directions, see www.rss.org.uk/findus.

Statistics on Wealth Inequality

A meeting of the Official Statistics Section will take place on 21 May 2012 from 5 to 7pm with tea/coffee served in the basement from 4.30pm.

RSS, Errol Street, EC1Y 8LX

Speakers

Elaine Chamberlain, Statistician, Wealth and Assets Survey, Office for National Statistics
John Hills, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Director of the Research Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion

Summary

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) conducted the first wave of the Wealth and Assets Survey between July 2006 and June 2008.  This survey is unique in both its comprehensive coverage of assets (financial, property, pensions, possessions), debts and savings, attitudes towards debt and savings and the characteristics of households, but also in its coverage of all persons living in private households in Great Britain.

The second wave of the survey, returning to households who responded in wave 1, commenced in July 2008, finishing in June 2010.

Elaine will speak about the results from wave 2 of the survey, the first of which were published in December 2011:  http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/was/wealth-in-great-britain-wave-2/2008-2010--part-1-/pra---was-wave-2--part-1-.pdf. Further data, including the first longitudinal data from the survey, are due to be published in the first half of 2012.

John will range more widely over statistics available on wealth and income inequality and their implications, and will also respond to the ONS presentation.

Attendance

Attendance is free and open to all, but pre-registration is recommended. You can register by email meetings@rss.org.uk or by phone (020) 7638 8998. 

For further information about the meeting contact Philip Turnbull (pturnbullmk@gmail.com).

Health surveys user meeting

Tuesday 10 July 2012
Royal Statistical Society, London

This meeting will provide a forum for the exchange of information and views between users and producers of the UK health surveys. It is aimed primarily at users and potential users of survey microdata. The programme contains a mixture of papers from data producers and researchers and a poster session at lunchtime.

The meeting is free to attend and lunch is provided. To view the programme and book a place please go to  http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-07-10/

Family Resources Survey user meeting

Friday 22 June 2012
Royal Statistical Society, London

This meeting will provide a forum for the exchange of information and views between users and producers of the Family Resources Survey. It is aimed primarily at users and potential users of survey microdata.

The meeting is free to attend and lunch is provided. To view the programme and book a place please go to  http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-06-22/

Family Resources Survey User Meeting

Friday 22 June 2012
Royal Statistical Society, London

This meeting will provide a forum for the exchange of information and views between users and producers of the Family Resources Survey. It is aimed primarily at users and potential users of survey microdata.

The meeting is free to attend and lunch is provided. To view the programme and book a place please go to  http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-06-22/

RSS Meeting: The International Crime Drop

15th May 2012 at 5pm with tea/coffee from 4.30pm.
Royal Statistical Society,12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX, London

The presentations will focus on important findings from a forthcoming edited book on the crime drop and will draw on data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) and other international data sources include the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on homicide rates and the European Sourcebook on police recorded rates. Observed and estimated crime rate trends will be presented and their implications discussed. Dramatic changes in routine activities in society that opened up crime opportunities and reduced risks explained the crime increases since the Second World War. The same perspective can also be applied to help explain the recent crime drops as well as the variations in trend and their timing across different crime types.

Speakers are:

Nick Tilley, University College London

Andromachi Tseloni, Nottingham Trent University

Jan Van Dijk, Tilburg University, Netherlands

The session will be chaired by Chris Kershaw from the Home Office who will also discuss some specific findings from England and Wales due to be published in the book that may help to explain the divergence between crime trends and some public attitudes. Allan  Brimicombe from East London University, who is also chair of the Crime and Justice Statistics Network, will act as the discussant.

Attendance is free and open to all, but pre-registration is recommended. You can register by email meetings@rss.org.uk or by phone (020) 7638 8998.  For further information about the meeting contact Chris Kershaw (chris.kershaw@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk). For directions see www.rss.org.uk/findus.

Multiple imputation for missing data: State of the art and new developments

Meeting of the Social Statistics Section
18th April 2012, 11am-5pm
Royal Statistical Society, 12 Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX 

Multiple imputation is a general statistical technique for analyzing data with missing observations, which can produce valid estimates and inference in a very wide range of settings. Maturing understanding of its properties in different circumstances and the availability of increasingly flexible software are making multiple imputation an attractive option for many types of statistical analyses. This meeting provides an overview of the field and its applications, and a discussion of recent developments.

James Carpenter (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) Multiple imputation: History and overview
- what is multiple imputation, how is it done, and what can it achieve?

Jonathan Bartlett (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) Accommodating the model of interest within the fully conditional multiple imputation framework Multiple imputation of covariates allowing for:
- models of interest which include non-linear terms or interactions
- non-linear models of interest, such as Poisson regression or Cox proportional hazards models

Rachael Hughes (University of Bristol)
Comparison of imputation variance estimators
- Potential pitfalls of multiple imputation when the imputation and analysis models are misspecified and/or incompatible.
- Different approaches to imputation inference in different scenarios of misspecification

Ofer Harel (University of Connecticut)
Multiple imputation in two stages
- strategies for analysis with two types of missing values

Shaun Seaman (MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge) Combining Multiple Imputation and Inverse Probability Weighting
- Why combine inverse probability weighting with multiple imputation to handle missing data?
- Using multiple imputation in studies with sampling weights

Registration with payment is required. Booking forms can be downloaded from www.rss.org.uk/eventforms. For a map and directions see www.rss.org.uk/findus. For further information, contact Jouni Kuha (j.kuha@lse.ac.uk

Registration charges: RSS Student/Retired Fellows - £30; CStats/GradStats - £34; RSS Fellows - £38; RSS members - £50; none of the above - £75

Opinions and Lifestyle Survey user meeting

Wednesday 21 March 2012, 9.30am – 1pm
Royal Statistical Society, Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX

ESDS Government has organised this half-day Opinions and Lifestyle Survey user meeting, which will comprise a number of papers from users of the current ONS Opinions Survey and the General Lifestyle Survey. The user meeting will also provide users with valuable information from ONS on the content and methodology of the new Opinions and Lifestyle Survey that will be created in 2012 as a result of merging the ONS Opinions survey with some of the previous General Lifestyle Survey questions. For more information on this please see the ONS website at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/consultations/closed-consultations/2011/the-future-of-the-glf-survey/index.html

The presentations include:

Investigating subjective well-being on the Opinions Survey
Lucy Tinkler, Office for National Statistics

Using the ONS Opinions Survey to describe trends and patterns in charitable giving
Joy Dobbs and Veronique Jochum, National Council for Voluntary Organisations

Has inequality in disability-free life expectancy increased during the first decade of the 21st century?'

Andrew Yeap and Olugbenga Olatunde, Disability and Health Measurement, Office for National Statistics

To view the full programme and book a place for the user meeting please go to http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-03-21/

The Royal Statistical Society's 2012 International Conference

Telford International Centre
3-6 September.

The conference organisers welcome submissions for contributed talks and posters are currently welcomed on any topic or area of interest related to statistics and the use of data.  The online submission system – together with information about the exact requirements - can be accessed via the conference website www.rss.org.uk/rss2012

The deadline for submissions is 30 March.

The broad streams for the conference have been announced as follows:

medical, clinical trials, epidemiology
public sector & policy evaluation
statistical methods & theory
environment & ecology
data science (including experimental design)
communication of statistical ideas
quality & process improvement
industry & commerce
emerging topics

Full details about the topics covered by each stream can be found on the conference website, however possible topics within the ‘Public sector & policy evaluation’ stream include:

Census

Demography
National/Official Statistics
Performance measurement/monitoring
Sampling/surveys
Data disclosure/linkage
Open Data
National well-being
Evidence-based policy
Health service statistics
Housing statistics
Income statistics
Population statistics
Transport statistics
Use of statistics for policy evaluation & service delivery in the public sector

Contributed talk presenters will be allocated 20 minute slots in parallel contributed sessions for their presentations. Meanwhile posters will be displayed in the main exhibition area where all refreshments will be served.

Submissions from statisticians and users of statistics in the early stages of their careers are positively encouraged.

The following plenary speakers have been confirmed for the conference: Hal Varian (Google), Martine Durand (OECD) and David Hand (Imperial College).

Confirmed invited sessions include:   Making the most of the 2011 Census outputs for England & Wales, Measuring National Well-Being, Ageing in the 21^st Century, Inequality in the UK, Methodology for Longitudinal Studies and ‘Big Data’ Challenges.

Further information about the speakers and the invited session topics can be found on the conference website www.rss.org.uk/rss2012

Opinions and Lifestyle Survey user meeting

Wednesday 21 March 2012, 9.30am – 1.00pm
Royal Statistical Society, Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX

ESDS Government has organised this half-day Opinions and Lifestyle Survey user meeting which will comprise a number of papers from users of the current ONS Opinions Survey and the General Lifestyle Survey. The user meeting will also provide users with valuable information from ONS on the content and methodology of the new Opinions and Lifestyle Survey that will be created in 2012 as a result of merging the ONS Opinions survey with some of the previous General Lifestyle Survey questions. For more information on this please see the ONS website at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/about-ons/consultations/closed-consultations/2011/the-future-of-the-glf-survey/index.html.

The meeting is free to attend. To view the programme and book a place please go to www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-03-21/

Living Costs and Food Survey user meeting

Tuesday 20 March 2012
Royal Statistical Society, Errol Street, London, EC1Y 8LX

This meeting, organised by the Economic and Social Data Service, will provide a forum for data users and producers to meet and discuss new developments and exchange information about the Living Costs and Food Survey. The programme contains a mixture of papers from data producers and researchers.

The meeting is free to attend and lunch is provided. To view the programme and book a place please go to www.ccsr.ac.uk/esds/events/2012-03-20/

Measuring National Well-being

A joint meeting of the Official Statistics and Social Statistics Sections will take place on

8th March 2012 at 5pm with tea/coffee from 4.30pm, at the RSS, 12 Errol Street EC1Y 8LX

Speakers

Paul Allin, Director: Measuring National Well-being (MNW) programme, Office for National Statistics

Charles Seaford, Head of the Centre for Well-being, New Economics Foundation, will respond as a discussant.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) Measuring National Well-being (MNW) programme aims to develop and publish an accepted and trusted set of National Statistics to understand and monitor well-being.

The programme was launched in November 2010 with a national debate on ‘What matters to you?’ to improve understanding of what should be included in measures of the nation’s well-being. Further information on the programme is at http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/user-guidance/well-being/index.html

ONS has been undertaking  a consultation seeking views on a proposed set of domains (aspects of national well-being) and headline indicators which were outlined in the discussion paper “Measuring National Well-being - Discussion paper on domains and measures” (31 October 2011). The domains and indicators were developed from responses to the national debate, research into well-being and international initiatives.

In addition, ONS have recently released initial experimental results looking at individuals assessments of their own well-being, collected via ONS’s Opinions survey.

Attendance is free and open to all, but pre-registration is recommended. You can register by email meetings@rss.org.uk or by phone (020) 7638 8998. 
For further information about the meeting contact Charles Lound or David Matz (charles.lound@ons.gsi.gov.uk or david.matz@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk)