CSDS - Community Services dataset

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) agrees to process the Data only for the purposes outlined below, as agreed with NHS England (formerly NHS Digital):

Statutory purpose

The ONS, as the executive arm of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), requires access to administrative data held by NHS England for the production of official statistics.

In the past it has been difficult for ONS to access administrative data controlled by other Government departments, information that could potentially transform official statistics and the impact they have on decision making for the better. Often, this has been caused by the lack of a clear legal basis under which the data can be shared with ONS. As a result, in 2016, ONS set out why legislation was needed for better access to data:

https://www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/publication/delivering-better-statistics-for-better-decisions-data-access-legislation-march-2016/

As a result, the Digital Economy Act in April 2017 amended the Statistics and Registration Services Act (2007) (SRSA) such that ONS can require public authorities to share data with it. See the Digital Economy Act (chapter 7 of part 5):

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2017/30/part/5/chapter/7/enacted

More specifically, section 45c of the SRSA 2007 (as inserted by section 80 of the Digital Economy Act 2017) permits the Statistics Board (of which ONS is a part) to serve a Notice on a public authority requiring it to disclose information it holds in connection with its functions:

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/18/section/45C

To do so, the information so disclosed must be required by the Statistics Board for one or more of its functions as set out in the SRSA 2007 and the Census Act 1920.

The SRSA (2007) states that the ONS’ objectives ‘include promoting and safeguarding the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good, where serving the public good includes informing the public about social and economic matters and assisting in the development and evaluation of public policy’. It also sets out the Board’s functions, which are specifically referred to in section 45c of the amended SRSA. Notably they include, under section 20, that ONS ‘may produce and publish statistics relating to any matter relating to the United Kingdom or any part of it’.

Requirements made under section 45 must also be in line with a statistical statement of principles that has been approved by parliament:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-economy-act-2017-part-5-codes-of-practice/statistics-statement-ofprinciples-and-code-of-practice-on-changes-to-data-systems

This states that ‘We will only seek access to data for the purposes of fulfilling one or more of our statutory functions, including to produce official statistics and undertake statistical research that meets identifiable user needs for the public good.’

The statement also sets out six principles which ONS will adhere to when requiring information under section 45. The principles state that ONS will:

• safeguard confidentiality

• be transparent about what data it is accessing and why

• ensure that accessing the data is lawful and meets strict ethical standards

• ensure that accessing the data is in the public interest - for example that the data are fit for purpose for the statistical use for which ONS intends

• ensure requiring that the data supplied is proportionate - for example, ONS will have exhausted possible alternatives

• seek to collaborate with suppliers at all times

In addition, the following is a useful framework for categorizing ONS’ statistical uses for information such as those covered under this Agreement. They are all related to ONS’ function of producing Official Statistics as aforementioned:

• Improvements to existing Official Statistics

• Development of new Official Statistics - this may involve testing to investigate whether statistics of sufficient quality can be produced, and may also involve the production of statistics badged as ‘experimental’ while further work is done to improve quality aspects such as accuracy

• Quality assurance of Official Statistics

• Development of commentary around Official Statistics

• Replacement of current survey questions - developing statistics from available data to directly replace the need to collect the information through survey questions

• Improving efficiency or accuracy of sampling - for example, ensuring that a representative sample of the target population is taken when conducting a survey of the public, such that the statistics produced from the survey are the best possible reflection of reality

• Research and development of methodology - for example, using data to develop and test linkage methodology that is used to help produce statistics based on other data rather than the original data source

Using robust information governance processes, ONS has determined that the conditions associated with requiring data under section 45c of the amended SRSA have been met for the information in this Data Sharing Agreement. This process involved working closely with NHS England’s experts to help determine that the data would be of a good enough quality to meet the proposed statistical purposes. This work guided ONS’ assessment against some of the principles underpinning its legal powers - for example whether sharing the data is in the public interest and proportionate in terms of the burden on the supplier. In addition, as part of its commitment to transparency, ONS will publish full details of the reasons for acquiring the information, and ONS notes that NHS England will also publish this Data Sharing Agreement on its data uses register.

In relation to the issue of public interest, it is worth noting that the benefits gained from the statistics enabled by this data share do not need to be specific to health and social care when data are flowing under section 45 of the SRSA. For example, some of the data required will help improve ONS’ population and economic statistics, and in these cases, the improved statistics may not always benefit health and social care directly. The data shared with ONS under this Agreement will not be onwardly disseminated or shared, except as disclosure controlled aggregate statistics and/or analysis as aggregated data with small numbers suppressed, in line with the Hospital Episode Statistics Analysis Guide. Any exceptions to this would require additional NHS England approval. It would also require an appropriate alternative legal gateway because section 45c of the SRSA as amended by the Digital Economy Act only enables data to be shared with ONS (not for example, other Government departments or academic researchers).

The rest of this section will set out the specific purposes for which ONS requires the dataset. Each purpose will be linked to the framework of statistical uses set out above. In future, ONS may decide to put a dataset to new uses not explained below. In these cases, the new use will be in line with ONS’ legally defined functions. ONS will inform NHS England and enter into an amended Data Sharing Agreement before proceeding with that new purpose.

ONS will rely on the following lawful bases from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for processing personal data, inclusive of special category personal data:

• GDPR Article 6(1)(e) - The processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the data controller. The authority for ONS to produce, promote and safeguard official statistics is found in SRSA 2007.

• GDPR Article 9(2)(j) - The processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes in accordance with Article 89(1) based on Union or Member State law which shall be proportionate to the aim pursued, respect the essence of the right to data protection and provide for suitable and specific measures to safeguard the fundamental rights and interests of the data subject.

Data Processors:

Amazon Web Services -

Amazon Web Services provide IT hosting services to ONS and will store the data as contracted by ONS as a data processor.

The Integrated Data Service (IDS) is a cloud-based Trusted Research Environment (TRE) where analysts process data for the purposes listed in this agreement.

Google UK Limited provide IT hosting services to ONS for the IDS and will store the data as contracted by ONS as a processor.

Community Services Dataset (CSDS)

CSDS is a secondary uses data set that re-uses clinical and operational data to help improve the quality of publicly funded community services in England. These include mental health trusts, community healthcare trusts and care trusts. CSDS is required by ONS for research into the potential to model general health status and long-term health conditions from administrative data.

The data collected in CSDS covers all NHS-funded Community Health Services provided by Health Care Providers in England. This includes all services that have transitioned into new organisational forms because of the Transforming Community Services (TCS) programme. This includes acute and independent Sector healthcare providers that provide NHS-funded Community Health Services.

CSDS will be used to deliver longitudinal analysis capturing experiences and outcomes from childhood (from birth, early years education to higher education) to adulthood. Analyses will cover educational attainment, physical and mental health, poverty status, economic activity (and occupations held) and income, training and education, crime and homelessness. These variables will be set against characteristics, family relationships, parenthood, caring responsibilities and living environment (accommodation and place). A better understanding of social mobility and where support, funding and policy initiatives is needed across health, employment, education, transport, housing, and recreational services. ONS will further link the CSDS data to other data sources it holds to widen the scope of analysis. This may include, for example, linking to other health data to better understand health outcomes; linking to education, employment and income data to better understand social mobility; linking to Census and population data to improve population and linking to migration statistics and household survey data to better refine and enhance survey statistics.

Social Statistics Admin First, Health and Special Projects (SSAF HASP)

CSDS will help with research into ethnicity, health, disability, language, gender identity and caring.** Of these, ethnicity and health have been identified by the director of Health, Population and Methods (HPM) Transformation as key topics that the ONS need to conduct research on.

** By the term ‘research’, ONS refer to the analysis of the data in order to produce official statistics, not ‘research’ as it is generally understood to mean. ONS use the term ‘research’ to distinguish between regular statistical publications and more exploratory statistics (which are referred to as ‘research’). ONS recognise that, under section 45c of the SRSA 2007, they are not permitted to disclose the information they receive to researchers without the consent of the person who disclosed the information.

The research so far on ethnicity has used the admin-based population estimates (ABPE) dataset as the population base and linked on ethnicity data from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and English School Census (ESC) data. Admin based ethnicity statistics were then produced based on the proportion of people in each ethnic group. In the research so far, ONS was able to assign an ethnicity to 70% of the people in the 2016 admin-based population base using HES, ESC and IAPT data. ONS are now looking to link on ethnicity data from additional datasets, including CSDS, to increase the representativeness of the linked admin data and improve the accuracy of the resulting admin-based ethnicity statistics. Improved admin-based ethnicity statistics would enable ONS to produce statistics that are more likely to meet quality standards and increase the potential for producing multi-variate statistics.

Annual statistics on the population by ethnic group would also enable better equality monitoring and therefore better informed policy and decision making to reduce inequality and improve lives. Despite ethnicity being a high priority topic for users, ONS do not currently produce annual statistics on the population by ethnic group and the last official statistics published were from the 2011 Census. This is due to a lack of data, with survey data not having a large enough sample size to produce estimates below national level for the 18 ethnic groups.

Improved admin-based ethnicity statistics would also enable ONS to explore the potential of providing users with more regular information about health outcomes and health inequalities and estimates of healthy life expectancy.

Data on the general health of the population at subnational level is only available every 10 years from the Census. This information is important for monitoring health inequality and developing health policy. The general health data from the census is also used in the production of healthy life expectancy statistics. If the ONS can develop a health measure from administrative data, this will enable more frequent statistics to be published on general health and a more timely, objective health measure used in the production of health life expectancy statistics. There is a desire for coherent, high-quality estimates (size and distribution) of population sub-groups, such as protected characteristics (disability, marriage and civil partnership, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity).

The research so far on health has explored the potential to model general health status from HES data. ONS found they were unable to model general health status using just HES data alone and thus, are now looking to incorporate additional datasets to explore whether this improves model accuracy.

Population and Migration Statistics Transformation (PMST)

ONS are looking to use CSDS as an activity source when further developing ABPE. PMST may also be able to use demographic and address variables from CSDS to validate information on other data sources. There are also ambitious user needs which aim for a fully inclusive statistical system that provides frequent and timely statistics for the entire population, not just those living in private households. Within the Living Arrangements team, the ONS are also working towards contributing evidence to the 2023 Recommendation. ONS’ focus is on producing timely estimates on the number of households in England and Wales and their size and composition (such as one-person households, families with children, lone parent families). As part of ONS’ work, they are also looking at populations living in communal establishments. ONS estimates help national and local government to understand public needs, plan services and direct funding. To produce these, ONS needs up to date address data as well as information on relationships (such as mother/child). Just as the Resident Population team would need to, PMST need to understand how CSDS relates to PDS data and whether CSDS is able to help ONS with coverage (by including people who may not be on other data sources such as PDS) and, if it can, provide ONS with additional data on relationships and more up to date activity data to ensure ONS have the correct address information.

The fully inclusive statistics informing the delivery of appropriate services and infrastructure at both national and local level will help meet the demands of the entire population by, for example, addressing intercensal gaps such as people living in communal establishments, travellers, circular migrants, homeless, illegal migrants, children, and young people, etc.

In the Longitudinal Linkage team, ONS’ goal, as part of the 2023 Recommendation, is to, as accurately as possible, replicate and reduce the need for the 10-year census. The 10-year census becomes increasingly outdated the further we move away from the census collection date. By longitudinally linking datasets together, ONS can understand the population over time, including how many people are active on a dataset, which people interact with healthcare services etc. This directly addresses intercensal gaps and will help better direct public funds to those who need them across the country. Certain datasets with address/location data, further this goal, by allowing more targeted understanding of public needs.

The Resident Population Team's rationale is similar to that outlined above. As part of the 2023 Recommendation, the Resident Population Team aims to produce annual estimates of the size and demography of the resident population of England and Wales. ONS produce these estimates by linking various administrative data sources together. Statistics on the size (or stock) of the population contribute to ONS’ understanding of how it changes over time, both nationally and locally. This in turn can inform the direction of public funding. Adding the CSDS as an administrative data source could help to address age groups or geographical regions where there is coverage error (i.e., underestimation). This would help ONS to produce more complete admin-based population estimates. However, ONS would first need to understand the extent to which records on CSDS match with records on other health data sources that ONS currently uses e.g. PDS.

Health Analysis and Life Events (HALE) and Wider Surveillance Studies (WSS)

ONS' health analysts will use information about who has accessed community services as well as when, where, and why, for example diagnosis codes, for a range of statistical purposes in line with ONS' function to produce statistics for the public good. All use of CSDS for health and social care analysis will be to improve the availability and quality of statistics. Examples of the proposed uses include:

- Understanding health, morbidity and mortality.

- Understanding health inequalities, outcomes and care pathways.

- Understanding the effect of health conditions on socio-economic outcomes and life chances.

- Understanding the effect of health conditions and inequalities on educational outcomes.

- Understanding transitions into and out of health and social care services and the relationship with outcomes.

- Investigating the quality of characteristics data such as ethnicity data across different data sources.

Data Environment

This processing activity takes place in a dedicated ONS environment provided by Amazon Web Services, and is based in England and Wales only. Data security for storage and linkage of the data will be provided through an assured ONS data analysis environment that includes the following elements of security control:

• Need To Access applied through user account access and management. Access to the data is restricted to individuals with a justified need to access the data

• Controlled ingest and export of data into/out of the Data Access Platform (DAP) environment

• Controlled account access using unique credentials based on job role

• Logged and monitored access of user activity within the DAP environment

• Secure build configuration for infrastructure

• Vulnerability tested infrastructure with appropriate remediation and patching

• Compliance checks against security enforcing controls

• Architectural review against standards and best practice

• Staff security cleared to the appropriate level based on their supervised and/or unsupervised access to sensitive data in accordance with ONS clearance policies and data access processes

• Education and awareness of environment users covering security policies and secure working practices

• Operational support processes to securely manage the environment

• Risk assessment to identify security risks and mitigation actions to reduce this risk.

Following policy specified by the ONS Chief Security Officer, ONS user access to the data environment is only provided after approval of an application by the Information Asset Owner who also receives advice from Security and Information Management. The approval process includes an ethical assessment of the proposed data use. Staff requesting access to these data must be cleared to the appropriate National Vetting level, which is higher than the standard basic clearance required for all ONS staff. Only authorised ONS staff with appropriate security clearance will have access to identifiable CSDS data, with regular audit and monitoring in place to ensure compliance. A list of approved users is available on request.

With reasonable notice, periodic written/verbal checks may be conducted by an authorised employee of NHS England to confirm compliance with this application.

ONS will keep a record of any processing of personal data and will provide a copy of such record to NHS England on request. ONS will not transfer or permit the transfer of the data to any territory outside the UK without the prior written consent of NHS England.

As described in section 5a, the proposed purposes require linkage of records at the individual level. However, ONS is only interested in producing aggregate statistics and using these to uncover trends in line with their statutory functions.

As noted above, within the ONS data environment, users set up 'project spaces' and apply for access to data through the Information Asset Owner. Each 'project space' includes only the data required to carry out the relevant analysis and is only accessible to the users who require access to that data. Users will not be permitted to access identifiers for the purposes of analysis. In addition to the system protocols listed above, ONS will keep the number of staff permitted to process identifiers to an absolute minimum, and these staff will have a higher level of security clearance. All other staff will only be permitted to access non-identifying data.

ONS will never seek to intentionally re-identify individuals from NHS England data. To prevent inadvertent re-identification ONS analysts do not scrutinize individual rows of data, rather they run models on large scale datasets with millions of rows and scrutinize the outputs and aggregate results.

Furthermore, only statistical disclosure controlled aggregate outputs will be exportable from the secure data analysis environment. In other words, other than the initial transfer of the data from NHS England to ONS, the identifiable data will never be in transit and will always be protected by procedural controls.

The usefulness of the data relies on the quality and therefore value of the statistics that can be produced using the full dataset in comparison with for example a subset or random sample. There is additional information on statistical quality on the ONS website:

'The quality of a statistical product can be defined as the "fitness for purpose" of that product. More specifically, it is the fitness for purpose with regards to the European Statistical System dimensions of quality:

• relevance - is the degree to which a statistical product meets user needs in terms of content and coverage

• accuracy and reliability - is how close the estimated value in the output is to the true result

• timeliness and punctuality - describes the time between the date of publication and the date to which the data refers, and the time between the actual publication and the planned publication of a statistic

• accessibility and clarity - is the ease with which users can access data, and the quality and sufficiency of metadata, illustrations, and accompanying advice

• coherence and comparability - is the degree to which data derived from various sources or methods, but that refers to the same topic, is similar, and the degree to which data can be compared over time and domain, for example, geographic level

There are additional characteristics that should be considered when thinking about quality. These include output quality trade-offs, user needs and perceptions, performance cost and respondent burden, and confidentiality, transparency, and security.'

IDS -

The data will reside within Google Cloud Platform (GCP). All cloud services consumed for the storage and use of the data are scoped to securely managed GCP Projects. GCP Projects in scope for this project are not connected to ONS corporate networks. GCP Projects in scope for this project are accessible via the internet for administration/analytical work. Access is securely bound up with Google identity services, internet authentication proxies and multi-factor authentication. All platform infrastructure and storage is deployed into the Europe-west2 region (London) and in any of the 3 available zones for redundancy and high availability (where applicable). Processing of data can only be carried out on GCP infrastructure within the deployed region. Access to GCP platform is region locked to UK IP addresses only. Access to IDS and any data it holds is not permitted from outside the UK. Overseas connections are monitored, and connection attempts will lead to account suspension.

Data Linkage

Generally, linkage to other sources at a record level is a prerequisite to success for all proposed uses, and therefore identifiers including postcode, date of birth, sex and NHS number are required.

Linkage to other sources using NHS number or through identifiers provided by linkage to the Personal Demographic Services (PDS) data (supplied under DARS-NIC-20951-D2K6S) will allow ONS to link to both NHS England and non-NHS England data sources and consequently produce more granular statistics on a range of population and health topics while accounting for wider health, socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the population.

Only those analysts within ONS tasked to carry out and quality assure data linkage or derive location-based, demographic variables or flags will access personal identifiers. NHS numbers will be used by analysts as a unique identifier to link to other NHS England and non-NHS England datasets.

Health and social care statistical purposes would require linkage of the following datasets with CSDS:

• Census data

• PDS data (NHS England)

• Birth Notifications data (NHS England)

• Birth Registrations data (NHS England)

• Mortality data (NHS England)

• HES (NHS England)

• ECDS (NHS England)

• IAPT (NHS England)

• Maternity Services Dataset (NHS England)

• CQC Care Directory

Population and census statistical purposes would require linkage of the following datasets with CSDS:

Currently available data sources:

• 2011 Census

• Annual Population Survey

• Labour Market Survey

• ECDS

• IAPT

• ESC (Department for Education)

• Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) (Department for Education)

• Welsh School Census (WSC) (Welsh Government)

• Individualised Learner Record (ILR) (Department for Education)

• Emergency Department Data Set (EDDS) (Digital Health and Care Wales)

• Patient Episode Database for Wales (PEDW) (Digital Health and Care Wales)

• Benefits & Income Data (BIDS) (DWP)

• Pay As You Earn – Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) (HMRC)

• Birth Notifications

• Birth Registrations

• HES

• Maternity Services Dataset

• PDS

Potential future data sources:

• 2021 Census

• GP data for England

• GP data for Wales

• Mental Health Services Dataset

• Prescription’s data

• Self-Assessment data

• Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities CORE data

• Educated other than at school data

• Pupil attendance record data

• Lifelong Learning Wales Record

• Ministry of Justice Prisoners

• National Pupil Database

The outputs expected from this work include statistics, statistical reports, presentations, methodology papers and analyses to help fulfil ONS’ role to produce statistics for the public good. Should outputs contain any data, this data will be in aggregated form with small numbers supressed.

Any official statistics produced will be published so that they are publicly available - for example on the Office for National Statistics website or in statistical bulletins, analysis articles or data dashboards.

Projects focused on new topics or new data sources hope to include an exploration of the feasibility of using and/or linking the data as well as quality assessments of the data and linkage prior to full development of analysis and publication of statistics. Briefings for technical/expert audiences or methodology reports may be written for internal use in the development and assessment of new data sources and analysis. These reports hope to be published alongside experimental statistics or official statistics on the ONS website or in peer-reviewed journals as appropriate.

All ONS statistical teams engage regularly with users and will seek to provide frequent updates, through their regular stakeholder conversations, presentations, and events, on the production of official statistics which have been derived from the CSDS data required under this Agreement.

ONS have a publishing strategy and team which supports analytical teams to develop different outputs to suit a range of different audiences. ONS also has active communications, media, and social media teams to promote the dissemination of statistics to as wide a ranging audience as possible.

It is the aim for the ONS to have received the data before the end of October 2022, so the necessary data ingest, engineering and linkage can be completed. The aim is for the ONS to have completed research by the end of February 2023 and have this information written up for the Recommendation by the end of April 2023.

CSDS is needed by ONS for research into the potential to produce statistics on population characteristics from administrative data. The research will form part of the evidence base for the 2023 National Statistician’s Recommendation on the future of population and social statistics. The Recommendation will include a decision as to whether ONS has another traditional Census in 2031. As the Census is an important data source for many organisations and decision makers across the country, it is important that the Recommendation is based on the best possible evidence.

Health is a high priority topic for users. Therefore, in advance of the Recommendation, ONS needs to have fully explored the potential to produce health statistics without another Census. General health research so far has used PDS and HES data to model general health status for the population in England. The research found that more administrative data are required to model health status effectively as around half the population in England did not appear within the HES dataset. There was therefore no additional information, other than age and sex, to base the modelling on and thus the results were not of comparable quality to 2011 Census results. Obtaining additional health information from community services providers may improve the accuracy and coverage of the resulting admin-based health statistics.

Modelling general health status using administrative data may allow ONS to provide lower-level geographical outputs more frequently than once every ten years via the Census. If ONS can bring together as many administrative data sources as possible that contain health related information, ONS may be able to maximise population coverage and stand the best chance of producing health statistics that are of sufficient quality to meet user needs.

The Department of Health and Social Care and their agencies specifically use both census and population statistics (branded as national statistics) in the planning and provision of health and social care services and funding allocations. They are almost certainly used as the population baseline in any statistics that are published on a per capita basis.

The internal migration estimates are one of the components of the mid-year population estimates that are produced at various levels of geography (including clinical commissioning groups). It is these mid-year estimates that are the population baseline for a lot of health statistics. For instance, any health data published per capita for a particular level of geography (national, region, local authority, clinical commissioning group, parliamentary constituency etc) is almost certain to have ONS estimated or projected population statistics as the population baseline. Estimates and projections are published by age and sex. This means that they can also be used to better target age and sex specific health and care services (e.g., maternity, aging populations etc.)

The population estimates and projections are also used extensively throughout government and specifically by the Department of Health and Social Care and their agencies for the planning and provision of health and social care services and the distribution of funds. Throughout government, decisions on the distribution of billions of pounds of funds are made based on population estimates and projections.

The research outputs are used by academics, local authorities, other Government Departments and other statistical institutions for the allocation of funding and resource and other ongoing research into the use of administrative data to produce information about the population. This work is anticipated to enable efficient funding and resource allocation for a range of services, including health and social care.

Information about general health enables the monitoring of general health over time, the tracking and assessment of fitness for work and helps to estimate the need for care and benefits. It also enables the calculation of healthy life expectancy. Data collected on health contributes to the funding, development and planning of health care and helps to reduce social inequalities in health. Disability data is essential for public health spending and resource allocation and for monitoring the quality and outcomes of policies for persons with disabilities. Central and local government users use long term health problem and disability data with a wide range of sub-topics to identify and understand associations to inform service planning and delivery.

One of the key uses of CSDS will be linking the data to a range of other datasets at record level to inform the planning and provision of health and social care services and funding allocations. For example, the work to define and quantify the social care population will inform the Health and Social Care Levy Bill and will be used in the evaluation of current and future policy.

The Health and International team within ONS have not yet used the data but it may be used in due course as part of our work looking at whether admin data can be used to produce measures of disability and general health that could be added to an admin data based census, given the traditional census collects self-reported data on these concepts.

The Future of Population and Migration Statistics team need this dataset for research into the potential to produce statistics on population characteristics from admin data. The research will form part of the evidence base for the National Statistician's Recommendation on the future of population and social statistics. The Recommendation will include a decision on whether we have another traditional Census in 2031. As the Census is an important data source for many organisations and decision makers across the county, it is important that the recommendation is based on the best possible evidence. The dataset will help with research on ethnicity, health, disability, language, gender identity and caring. Of these, ethnicity and health have been identified by the directory of HPM Transformation as key topics that we need to conduct research on. This dataset will help with research on ethnicity, health, disability, language, gender identity and caring. Of these, ethnicity and health have been identified by the director of HPM Transformation as key topics that we need to conduct research on.

It is critical in researching the feasibility of an admin census with the results of this research being published in 2026. If the data proves to be valuable, it will be included in ongoing publications on an admin-based census.

Despite ethnicity being a high priority topic for users, ONS do not currently produce annual statistics on the population by ethnic group and the last official statistics published were from the Census. This is due to a lack of data, with survey data not having a large enough sample size to produce estimates below national level for the 18 ethnic groups. If we are able to bring together as many admin data sources as possible that contain an ethnicity variable, we can maximise population coverage and stand the best chance of producing ethnicity statistics that are of sufficient quality to meet user needs.

The research so far on ethnicity has used the admin-based population estimates dataset as the population base and linked on ethnicity data from Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) and English School Census (ESC). Admin-based ethnicity statistics were then produced based on the proportion of people in each ethnic group. We are now looking to link on ethnicity data from additional datasets, including the Community Services Dataset, to increase the percentage of the population that we are able to obtain ethnicity data for and increase the representativeness of the link admin data. This should improve the accuracy of the resulting admin-based ethnicity statistics. See here for more information: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/ethnicity/articles/developingadminbasedethnicitystatisticsforenglandandwales/2020#data-sources-and-quality.

Annual statistics on the population by ethnic group would enable inclusive equality monitoring, better informed policy, and more efficient national and local distribution of infrastructure/services. This would reduce inequality, improve lives, and address intercensal gaps such as people living in communal establishments, travellers, circular migrants, homeless, illegal migrants, children, and young people, etc.

The research so far on health has explored the potential to model general health status from Hospital Episode Statistics data. We found that we were unable to model general health status using HES data alone so are now looking to incorporate additional datasets to explore whether this improves model accuracy.

Data on the general health of the population at subnational level is only available every 10 years from the Census. This information is important for monitoring health inequality and developing health policy. The general health data from the census is also used in the production of healthy life expectancy statistics. If we are able to develop a health measure from admin data, this will enable more frequent statistics to be published on general health and a more timely, objective health measure used in the production of health life expectancy statistics.

Will help to understand if CSDS contains records which aren't already captured on PDS or HES/ECDS. If it does capture a population not on the PDS/HES/ECDS, then ONS will need the dataset to include this population in the Statistical Population Dataset going forward.