Source · Select Committees · Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee
Recommendation 8
8
Rejected
Paragraph: 36
Current delays in People Survey data publication are indefensible and lack transparency.
Conclusion
It is not clear to us that withholding People Survey data, so as to time its release with countless publications about Ministerial gifts, hospitality and expenses, is truly a transparent, or helpful, approach to the publication of the important data collected by the People Survey. We similarly find it difficult to believe that, in 2023, it takes a small team of statisticians several months to migrate results from internal dashboards and analyses into a single Excel spreadsheet for publication. Given that data and extensive analyses are readily available across government months ahead of their public release, current delays in the publication of data are indefensible.
Government Response Summary
The Cabinet Office does not accept the implied recommendation to change its publication timing, despite the committee's strong criticism of current delays. It commits to reducing the timing between internal and external distribution and will explore including release dates in the Research and Statistics calendar.
Paragraph Reference:
36
Government Response
Rejected
HM Government
Rejected
The Cabinet Office does not accept this recommendation. The Cabinet Office will, however, commit to reducing the timing between internal and external distribution of the findings. To further improve communications with external users of the Survey, we will also explore the option of including release dates in advance in the Research and Statistics calendar on gov.uk. It should be noted that it is not uncommon for external publication of results to take some time due to the quality assurance and preparation involved e.g. fifteen weeks after the close of the Armed Forces Continuous Attitude Survey 20235 and sixteen weeks after the close of the Canadian Public Service Employee Survey 2022/20236. The Cabinet Office will maintain its robust approach to the quality assurance of results from the People Survey. The Cabinet Office will provide accompanying commentary, helping to explain the main findings alongside the release of results.