Census/NeSS RoadshowsMarch 2003

Better

Information

Initiatives

Better Information Environment

The PAT 18 Report identified barriers to a

better information environment:• lack of data coded by ethnicity,• confusion on how to make a better use of

information collected whilst protecting confidentiality,

• lack of consistent geographic framework and tools.

Better Information initiatives

Policies are being developed to address these

issues:»Ethnicity»Data Access and Confidentiality»Geography

Ethnicity

Demand for ethnicity data

• Neighbourhood Renewal policy

• Race Relations Act 2000

Some Context

• Ethnicity multi-faceted

• Ethnic group subjective (self and other ascribed)

• Changing legal/policy environment

The National Statistics Guidance

• Census (though geographical complexity)

• National identity

• Nesting more disaggregated inputs to standard outputs

Comparability with Census

• If direct comparison with the 2001Census is the prime concern, and

• When only one question only possible– England and Wales– Scotland– Northern Ireland– GB (E & W)– UK (no breakdown of White category)

Census Classification (E & W)White Chinese or other ethnic groupBritish ChineseIrish Any other ethnic groupAny other White background All Chinese or other ethnic groupAll White groups

Black or Black British Asian or Asian BritishCaribbean IndianAfrican PakistaniAny other Black background BangladeshiAll Black groups Any other Asian background

All Asian groups

Mixed All Ethnic groupsWhite and Black CaribbeanWhite and Black African Not statedWhite and AsianAny other Mixed backgroundAll Mixed groups

National Identity

• If national identity needed, and

• Two questions possible– National identity first– Reduced ethnic group question (no ‘White

Irish’ category) – Cross tabulation of outputs

National Identity ClassificationAll ethnic groups (including White)

English

Scottish

Welsh

Irish

British

Other

All

Not stated

Nesting Inputs to Outputs

• Census write-ins to help design questions

• Most write-ins nest neatly into Census classification, enabling output comparability, e.g. Sinhalese, Somalian

• Some exceptions, e.g. Sikh, Kurdish

Data Access and Confidentiality

Personal Data and the Law

• Government departments and local authorities must have the vires to share personal data with a third party.

• Where a supplier has the vires to share personal data, this processing must comply with the Data Protection Act. It must be fair, lawful, necessary, not excessive, and physically secure.

• The ‘fairness’ of the processing depends on the information provided to the data subject, and whether it is sufficient for the data subject to make an informed decision about how their personal information should be processed.

• It is in the spirit of the Act to process personal data only when there is no alternative, and to minimise its processing if this is the case.

Personal Data, the Law and NeSS

• Vires, the common law of confidentiality, and the Data Protection Act are together an obstacle to the sharing of personal data in government.

• Government policies are likely to require new primary legislation before they can be fully implemented.

• But for now, it is necessary and desirable that data suppliers create aggregates and other statistics from their administrative sources to a co-ordinated design, and co-operate in this way to produce Neighbourhood Statistics.

• Our combined responsibilities to confidentiality and our duties under the law require there to be agreements between data suppliers and NeSS.

Data Access Agreement

• When data are processed to produce a Neighbourhood Statistics, a data access agreement will define responsibilities in every case:– the responsibilities of data owners/controllers for the

confidentiality of the data, and – the responsibilities of producers of Neighbourhood Statistics

for the confidentiality of the statistics.

• The Access Agreement will also state how these responsibilities will be satisfied.

Responsibilities of Data Owners/Controllers

• The role of data supplier to NeSS is to ensure that:– your obligations of confidentiality to data providers are met,

– you have the lawful authority to provide statistical information,

– statistical information you are asked to supply is the minimum necessary to fulfil the purposes of NeSS,

– you are satisfied that your data will be held securely,

– you are satisfied that the standards for disclosure control in the statistics allow you to maintain your responsibilities for the confidentiality of your data that underpins them.

• The Code of Practice and the NeSS data access & confidentiality are designed to help data suppliers about these matters.

Responsibilities of Producers of NeSS

Our primary responsibility is the guarantee that no statistics will be

produced that are likely to identify an individual.

Which means that :– It would require a disproportionate amount of time, effort,

and expertise for an intruder to be able to identify an individual in the output, and add to the information about that individual that is readily available in the public domain.

– It is an unacceptable disclosure risk for an output to allow an informed member of the public to claim to readily identify themselves or another individual data subject.

How will we meet our responsibilities

1. Protection by design

• The release of Neighbourhood Statistics will not rely only upon user access agreements for confidentiality protection, though they may be employed for other reasons. Disclosure risk is minimised when all protection is through data structure and output design.

2. Co-ordinated releases and revisions• All multiple releases and all revisions will receive an original

assessment for disclosure risk before being made available as outputs.

How will we meet our responsibilities

3. Employee confidentiality undertakings• The methods of statistical disclosure control employed

will only be available to those subject to the National Statistics obligation of confidentiality, where this information would be of value to an intruder.

• All employed in the production of Neighbourhood Statistics will be familiar with the disclosure policy and the methods by which breaches of security can be reported.

How will we meet our responsibilities

4. The physical security of NeSS data.

• There should be no risk considered 'acceptable' associated with the secure physical management of NeSS data.

5. Releasing data from NeSS other than by viewing the website.

• Neighbourhood Statistics will not release micro-data via the website.

• With the approval of the data supplier, non-disclosive aggregate data may be released via the website, subject to the requirements of the Code of Practice.

Distributed Tools

Data Suppliers to NeSS

Today:

• ONS

• Central Government Departments

Tomorrow:

• Local Authorities - depending on the scoping study results

The PAT 18 Tools Vision

• A package of tools, training and support

• Distributed and freely available

• Toolkit:– Geographic referencing– Disclosure control– Format and Metadata collection

Geographic Referencing tool

• Guidance to cover key principles

• Accreditation of commercial software for address matching/data validation

• ONS to offer a bureau service, if required and feasible

Disclosure Control tool

• Disclosure control standards and guidance document

• ONS to provide data owners with specification routines for random rounding

• Packages to address aggregation and disclosure control for datasets

Metadata and Format tool

• ONS to provide a template solution

• ONS to complete work on developing a metadata software tool

Timetable

• Fully developed set of tools to baselined list of data suppliers by March 2004

• Phased roll out to other data suppliers (incl. Local Authorities) thereafter - end 2004