Outputs (77)

The perils of pre-filling: Lessons from the UK's Annual Survey of Hours and Earning microdata (2023)
Journal Article

The role of the National Statistical Institution (NSI) is changing, with many now making microdata available to researchers through secure research environments This provides NSIs with an opportunity to benefit from the methodological input from rese... Read More about The perils of pre-filling: Lessons from the UK's Annual Survey of Hours and Earning microdata.

Disclosure control of machine learning models from trusted research environments (TRE): New challenges and opportunities (2023)
Journal Article

Introduction: Artificial intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare and medicine have increased in recent years. To enable access to personal data, Trusted Research Environments (TREs) (otherwise known as Safe Havens) provide safe and secure enviro... Read More about Disclosure control of machine learning models from trusted research environments (TRE): New challenges and opportunities.

Data use externatilies: Report to department for digital, culture, media and sport by Belmana with the University of the West of England (2022)
Report

This study was commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to: ● Identify the likely positive and negative externalities of data use (that is, the wider social impacts of data use) and ● Provide an assessment of the viabili... Read More about Data use externatilies: Report to department for digital, culture, media and sport by Belmana with the University of the West of England.

Frameworks, principles, and accreditation: Making data governance work (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Presentation to the Royal Statistical Society Data Ethics Section, covering the origins and development of the Five Safes, the EDRU approach to problems-solving, principles-based regulation, and how these all need to work together to achieve effectiv... Read More about Frameworks, principles, and accreditation: Making data governance work.

Can we identify students in ASHE? (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

ASHE is a key dataset in the UK, the only one which allows long-term analysis of flows in labour market status and earnings, and hence vitally important in the understanding of low pay and wage progression. Separating out students from non-student wo... Read More about Can we identify students in ASHE?.

The incidence of low pay is falling in Britain, but why – and can we trust the figures? (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

Recent research indicates that the percentage of employees in Britain who are low paid – earning below two-thirds median hourly earnings – has been falling in the last 6-7 years. It points to the increased ‘bite’ of the adult National Minimum Wage (N... Read More about The incidence of low pay is falling in Britain, but why – and can we trust the figures?.

Not just arms and legs: Employer perspectives on student workers (2022)
Journal Article

The student workforce plays a substantial part in several low-paying industries such as retail and hospitality, and this has grown over time. However, there has been little recent research. The usual assumption is that students compete successfully w... Read More about Not just arms and legs: Employer perspectives on student workers.

Risk of disclosure when reporting commonly used univariate statistics (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

When basic or descriptive summary statistics are reported, it may be possible that the entire sample of observations is inadvertently disclosed, or that members within a sample will be able to work out responses of others. Three sets of univariate su... Read More about Risk of disclosure when reporting commonly used univariate statistics.

10 is the safest number that there's ever been (2022)
Journal Article

When checking frequency and magnitude tables for disclosure risk, the cell threshold (the minimum number of observations in each cell) is a crucial parameter. In rules-based environments, this is a hard limit on what can or can't be published. In pri... Read More about 10 is the safest number that there's ever been.

Enriched ASHE Quick Start Guide (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

The Wage and Employment Dynamics (WED) project was funded by Administrative Data Research 2019-2022 to review, quality assure and enhance ASHE data. The project was also provided with ASHE data linked to the 2011 Census for England and Wales. This do... Read More about Enriched ASHE Quick Start Guide.

A marriage of convenience: How employers and students working in hospitality view the employment relationship (2022)
Journal Article

Since the 1990s, the hospitality industry has been increasingly characterized by temporary and insecure forms of employment, a development, which has coincided with rising numbers of students seeking part-time employment. This provides increased job... Read More about A marriage of convenience: How employers and students working in hospitality view the employment relationship.

Weighting for employer non-response in ASHE (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is based on a 1% sample of employee jobs and provides many of the UK’s official earnings statistics. Weights are provided with the core dataset, which adjust the profile of the annual achieved sample suc... Read More about Weighting for employer non-response in ASHE.

Accounting for firms in ethnicity wage gaps throughout the earnings distribution (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

Ethnicity wage gaps in Great Britain are large and have persisted over time. Previous studies of these gaps have been almost exclusively confined to analyses of household data, so they could not account for the role played by individual employers, de... Read More about Accounting for firms in ethnicity wage gaps throughout the earnings distribution.

Disclosure risks in odds ratios and logistic regression (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

When publishing statistics from confidential data, there exists a risk that the statistic might inadvertently reveal confidential information. Statistical disclosure control (SDC) aims to reduce that risk to an acceptable level. Most SDC theory is co... Read More about Disclosure risks in odds ratios and logistic regression.

Safety in numbers: Minimum thresholding, Maximum bounds and Little White Lies : The case of the mean and standard deviation (2022)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Reporting the sample mean, sample standard deviation and sample size could in some cases lead to the unique identification of the underpinning sample. The likelihood of this reveal via direct enumeration of the possible search space decreases with i... Read More about Safety in numbers: Minimum thresholding, Maximum bounds and Little White Lies : The case of the mean and standard deviation.

ASHE – 2011 Census Data Linkage: User Guide Drop 1 of the ASHE – 2011 Census Dataset (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

Longitudinal attrition in ASHE (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) provides many of the UK’s official earnings statistics. The survey operates on an annual 1% sample of employee jobs. However, the method of sampling - based on the final two digits of an employee’s Natio... Read More about Longitudinal attrition in ASHE.

Training analysts in the management of confidential data (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

With researchers increasingly gaining access to confidentiality data through restricted environments, interest has grown in the training of those researchers to protect confidentiality and to use the secure facility effectively. Researcher training,... Read More about Training analysts in the management of confidential data.

Using the ‘five safes’ to structure economic evaluations of data governance (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

The ‘five safes’ is a popular data governance framework. It is used to design and critique data management strategies across the world, and has also been used as a performance framework to measure the effectiveness of data access operations. We repor... Read More about Using the ‘five safes’ to structure economic evaluations of data governance.

Measuring the value of data governance in agricultural investments: A case study (2022)
Journal Article

Summary The study at hand measures the value of improving data governance and access in the Supporting Soil Health Interventions (SSHI) project in Ethiopia. We applied two separate but interlinked models, one qualitative and one quantitative, to crea... Read More about Measuring the value of data governance in agricultural investments: A case study.

Exploring the workplace location problem in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (2022)
Preprint / Working Paper

The Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) is an important source of longitudinal linked employer-employee payroll earnings data for Britain. It provides accurate information on employees’ hours and earnings and information on the location of em... Read More about Exploring the workplace location problem in the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings.

Statistical disclosure control for HESA: Part 1: Review of SDC theory (2021)
Report

This report for the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) is a summary of statistical disclosure control (SDC) methods for tabular outputs.

Automatic Checking of Research Outputs (ACRO): A tool for dynamic disclosure checks (2021)
Journal Article

This paper discusses the issues surrounding the creation of an automatic tool to reduce the burden of output checking in research environments. It describes ACRO (Automatic Checking of Research Outputs), a Stata tool written as a proof-of-concept, an... Read More about Automatic Checking of Research Outputs (ACRO): A tool for dynamic disclosure checks.

Statistical disclosure controls for machine learning models (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are trained on large datasets. Where the training data is sensitive, the data holders need to consider risks posed by access to the training data and risks posed by the models that are released. The first problem c... Read More about Statistical disclosure controls for machine learning models.

The present and future of confidential microdata access [draft] (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This briefing document was prepared for the DRAGoN conference 'The Present and Future of Microdata Access', 5th-9th July 2021. It provides an introduction to the topics to be covered in the conference.

The present and future of confidential microdata access: Post-workshop report (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

In the summer of 2021, the University of the West of England, in collaboration with UN Economic Commission for Europe, Eurostat, INXEDA and statistical organisations across the world, hosted a workshop to review lessons learnt in microdata access ove... Read More about The present and future of confidential microdata access: Post-workshop report.

Measuring the value of improving data governance and access in Gates Foundation programme: A case study of the Supporting Soil Health Interventions in Ethiopia projects (2021)
Journal Article

The Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) and the Open Data Institute (ODI) commissioned a team of economists to measure the value of improving data governance and access in the Supporting Soil Health Interventions in Ethiopia (S... Read More about Measuring the value of improving data governance and access in Gates Foundation programme: A case study of the Supporting Soil Health Interventions in Ethiopia projects.

Sequential mixed methods research: Non-compliance in apprentice pay with owls (2021)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Within mixed methods literature, the relationship between qualitative and quantitative data collection is ubiquitously presented as sequential. Thus, the most followed approach is for the first stage of data collection to follow the second, or to run... Read More about Sequential mixed methods research: Non-compliance in apprentice pay with owls.

Process and economic evaluation of the ODI R&D programme: Final report (2021)
Report

The Open Data Institute was funded by Innovate UK to undertake a major programme of Research and Development on "Data Innovation for the UK", which was re-scoped and funded on a yearly basis for a total of 4 years (called, for short, "The R&D program... Read More about Process and economic evaluation of the ODI R&D programme: Final report.

Understanding a pandemic: The power of administrative data (2021)
Book Chapter

This chapter is taken from the book Productivity and the Pandemic. It suggests how administrative data is essential to understanding what is happening now, and what happpens next.

Microdata access and privacy: What have we learned over twenty years? (2021)
Journal Article

Felix Ritchie reflects on lessons learned in twenty years of microdata access in the UK and Canada. Based on his contribution to the panel on "Privacy And Microdata Access: Two Worlds Colliding?" at the October 2020 Canadian Research Data Centre Netw... Read More about Microdata access and privacy: What have we learned over twenty years?.

Financial resilience, income dependence and organisational survival in UK charities (2021)
Journal Article

The financial well-being of the charity sector has important social implications. Numerous studies have analysed whether the concentration of income in a few sources increases financial vulnerability. However, few studies have systematically consider... Read More about Financial resilience, income dependence and organisational survival in UK charities.

Using ASHE to examine trends in low pay: Initial exploration of the data (2020)
Report

Using the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) 2004-2019 we report consistent time-series estimates of the percentage of jobs on and around the minimum wage; low paid jobs above the minimum; and ‘high paid’ jobs. In doing so we report on some i... Read More about Using ASHE to examine trends in low pay: Initial exploration of the data.

Runners, repeaters, strangers and aliens: Operationalising efficient output disclosure control (2020)
Journal Article

Statistical agencies and other government bodies increasingly use secure remote research facilities to provide access to sensitive data for research and analysis by internal staff and third parties. Such facilities depend on human intervention to ens... Read More about Runners, repeaters, strangers and aliens: Operationalising efficient output disclosure control.

Frameworks, principles and accreditation in modern data management (2020)
Preprint / Working Paper

The Five Safes framework is increasingly widely used for data governance. Since its conception in 2003, it has influenced data management in many ways, particularly in the public sector. As it has become established, both the advantages and limitatio... Read More about Frameworks, principles and accreditation in modern data management.

Understanding output checking (2020)
Report

This report for Eurostat (Methodology) considers the conceptual and practical issues that need to be addressed in designing and implementing automatic disclosure control checking for statistical research outputs. The report covers - The basic theo... Read More about Understanding output checking.

10 is the safest number that there’s ever been (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

When checking frequency and magnitude tables for disclosure risk, the cell threshold (the minimum number of observations in each cell) is the crucial statistic. In rules-based environments, this is a hard limit on what can or can’t be published. In p... Read More about 10 is the safest number that there’s ever been.

User-focused threat identification for anonymised microdata (2019)
Journal Article

© 2019 - IOS Press and the authors. When producing anonymised microdata for research, national statistics institutes (NSIs) identify a number of 'risk scenarios' of how intruders might seek to attack a confidential dataset. This approach has been cri... Read More about User-focused threat identification for anonymised microdata.

The five safes of risk-based anonymization (2019)
Journal Article

The sharing of data for the purposes of data analysis and research can have many benefits. At the same time, concerns and controversies about data ownership and data privacy elicit significant debate. So how do we utilize data in a way that protects... Read More about The five safes of risk-based anonymization.

Analyzing the disclosure risk of regression coefficients (2019)
Journal Article

A major growth area in social science research this century has been access to highly sensitive confidential microdata, often via restricted-access remote facilities. These allow researchers highly unlimited access to manipulate the data but with che... Read More about Analyzing the disclosure risk of regression coefficients.

Not just arms and legs: Student working and the local labour market (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Not just arms and legs: The impact of student working on local labour markets (2019)
Preprint / Working Paper

Not just arms and legs: Student working and the local labour market (2019)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Confidentiality and linked data (2018)
Book Chapter

This chapter considers the confidentiality issues around linked data. It notes that the use and availability of secondary (adminstrative or social media) data, allied to powerful processing and machine learning techniques, in theory means that re-ide... Read More about Confidentiality and linked data.

Evidence-based, default-open, risk-managed, user-centred data access (2018)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

In recent years, there has been an increasing demand from the academic community for more access to confidential data for research purposes, particularly that data collected by government departments. This has happened for three reasons. First, both... Read More about Evidence-based, default-open, risk-managed, user-centred data access.

Re-thinking the indices of multiple deprivation (for England): A review and exploration of alternative/complementary area-based indicator systems (2018)
Report

Power to Change was established by the Big Lottery as an organisation whose mission is to fund community businesses and through such investment make an impact on the most disadvantaged places in England. Through setting its mission to target the most... Read More about Re-thinking the indices of multiple deprivation (for England): A review and exploration of alternative/complementary area-based indicator systems.

Spontaneous recognition: An unneccessary control on data access? (2017)
Book Chapter

Social scientists increasingly expect to have access to detailed source microdata for research purposes. As the level of detail increases, data owners worry about ‘spontaneous recognition’, the likelihood that a microdata user believes that he or she... Read More about Spontaneous recognition: An unneccessary control on data access?.

Open data: Who needs it? (2017)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

This presentation, to introduce and stimulate a panel discussion, argued that we have 50 years worth of experience in knowing how to use data safely for researcher; as such we should be concentrating on practical management problems not theory: "how-... Read More about Open data: Who needs it?.

Lessons learned in training ‘safe users’ of confidential data (2017)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Many statistical organisations require researchers using detailed sensitive data to undergo ‘safe researcher’ training. Such training has traditionally reflected the ‘policing’ model of data protection. This mirrors the defensive stance often adopted... Read More about Lessons learned in training ‘safe users’ of confidential data.

The "Five Safes": A framework for planning, designing and evaluating data access solutions (2017)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

The ‘Five Safes’ is a popular way to structure thinking about data access solutions. Originally used mainly by statistical agencies and social science academics , in recent years it has been adopted more widely across government, health organisations... Read More about The "Five Safes": A framework for planning, designing and evaluating data access solutions.

Spontaneous recognition: An unnecessary control on data access? (2017)
Journal Article

Social scientists increasingly expect to have access to detailed data for research purposes. As the level of detail increases, data providers worry about “spontaneous recognition”, the likelihood that a microdata user believes that he or she has acci... Read More about Spontaneous recognition: An unnecessary control on data access?.

Ensuring the confidentiality of statistical outputs from the ADRN (2017)
Report

This technical report discusses potential risks to confidentiality from publication of statistical results based on confidential data, and what we can do to minimise that risk while still ensuring that useful research gets published.

Measuring compliance with minimum wages (2017)
Journal Article

© 2017 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved. Identifying genuine underpayment of minimum wages is not straightforward. Some well-known statistical issues affect the measurement of compliance rates, but factors such as processing or behavi... Read More about Measuring compliance with minimum wages.

Improving data quality: The value of the user as data detective (2016)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

In this presentation, we explore how users can contribute to a better understanding of data quality. We illustrate, with reference to minimum wage compliance, how users identify the sort of data problems missed by NSIs

Department of social services data access project final report (2016)
Report

This report reviews the context and options available to the Department of Social Service (DSS) in developing its data access strategy, and proposes future developments based upon international practice. The structure of the report is separated into... Read More about Department of social services data access project final report.

Understanding apprentice pay: Final report (2016)
Report

This is the final report from a study of apprentice pay in the UK. It uses a mixed methods approach. Econometric analysis of the Apprentice Pay Survey and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings confirms findings of previous reports that the apprenti... Read More about Understanding apprentice pay: Final report.

Understanding apprentice pay: Interim report (2016)
Report

This is the interim report from a study of apprentice pay in the UK. It uses a mixed methods approach. Econometrics analysis of the Apprentice Pay Survey and the Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings confirms findings of previous reports that the appre... Read More about Understanding apprentice pay: Interim report.

Financial resilience in charities v.2 (2016)
Report

Document submitted to the Select Committee on Charities; House of Lords. 30th September 2016

Evidence-based, context-sensitive, user-centred, risk-managed SDC planning: Designing data access solutions for scientific use (2015)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

Disclosure control planning is characterised by over-reliance on theoretical models, inappropriate disclosure scenarios, worst-case planning, confusion over subjective versus objective risk management, and an unwillingness to consider the evidence ba... Read More about Evidence-based, context-sensitive, user-centred, risk-managed SDC planning: Designing data access solutions for scientific use.

Principles- versus rules-based output statistical disclosure control in remote access environments (2015)
Journal Article

In recent years, the level of detail in confidential data made available to social scientists has increased dramatically. Much of this has been due to the growth in secure data access facilities, which allow access to the most detailed data under str... Read More about Principles- versus rules-based output statistical disclosure control in remote access environments.

Enabling data linkage to maximise the value of public health research data (2015)
Report

This project was commissioned by The Wellcome Trust on behalf of the Public Health Research Data Forum. The project aimed to identify the gains to public health research from linking existing data sources, the opportunities in and barriers to such da... Read More about Enabling data linkage to maximise the value of public health research data.

Enabling data linkage to maximise the value of public health research data: Summary report (2015)
Report

Summary for the Wellcome Trust report on Enabling Data Linkage, including example case studies, key findings, and recommendations

The measurement of apprentice pay: Interim report (2015)
Report

This is the Interim Report on the LPC's project to review the measurement of Apprentice Pay. It concentrates largely on methodological issues, including a detailed analysis of the 2012 Apprentive Pay Survey; most of the issues raised were addressed i... Read More about The measurement of apprentice pay: Interim report.

Understanding official data sources: Final report for the low pay commission (2014)
Report

The paper is split into three main sections: a review of existing data sources; an analysis of characteristics of the main reference datasets used for the production of research and official statistics; and an investigation into the imputation code u... Read More about Understanding official data sources: Final report for the low pay commission.

Access to sensitive data: Satisfying objectives rather than constraints (2014)
Journal Article

The argument for access to sensitive unit-level data produced within government is usually framed in terms of risk and the legal responsibility to maintain confidentiality. This article argues that the framing of the question may restrict the set of... Read More about Access to sensitive data: Satisfying objectives rather than constraints.

International access to restricted data: A principles-based standards approach (2013)
Journal Article

Cross-border access to restricted government microdata for research has made relatively little progress. Recent developments are notable as exceptions. This paper argues that the situation is made more complex by the lack of a common general frame of... Read More about International access to restricted data: A principles-based standards approach.

Effective researcher management (2009)
Presentation / Conference Contribution

National Statistical Institutes [NSIs] are increasingly investigating new ways of providing access to confidential microdata for research purposes. These innovations are being driven by the requirement for NSIs to ensure the best possible return for... Read More about Effective researcher management.

Resistance to change in government: Risk, inertia and incentives
Preprint / Working Paper

There is a popular impression that governments are resistant to change and innovation, and that this is due to a combination of overly bureaucratic processes and a culture of risk aversion. It is debatable that this is well-founded, theoretically or... Read More about Resistance to change in government: Risk, inertia and incentives.

Addressing the human factor in data access: Incentive compatibility, legitimacy and cost-effectiveness in public data resources
Preprint / Working Paper

Traditional models of incentivising people suggest that positive incentives are more effective than negative ones. We argue that in data access the opposite can be true, as the assumptions made at the design stage can fundamentally change the user en... Read More about Addressing the human factor in data access: Incentive compatibility, legitimacy and cost-effectiveness in public data resources.

How do knowledge brokers work? The case of WERS
Preprint / Working Paper

A resource-based view of organizations suggests that internal knowledge is amongst the most important sources of competitive advantage. Regardless of whether these ideas are exaggerated, it is not necessary to buy into them all to accept the signific... Read More about How do knowledge brokers work? The case of WERS.

User-focused threat identification for anonymised microdata
Preprint / Working Paper

When producing anonymised microdata for research, national statistics institutes (NSIs) identify a number of 'risk scenarios' of how intruders might seek to attack a confidential dataset. This paper argues that the strategy used to identify confident... Read More about User-focused threat identification for anonymised microdata.

Hellenic statistical authority mission on microdata access: Final report
Report

A mission was convened to review current data access practices at the Hellenic Statistical Authority and make recommendations for future development. The resulting report defines a complete data access strategy for the Greek NSI. The report uses the... Read More about Hellenic statistical authority mission on microdata access: Final report.

Five Safes: Designing data access for research
Preprint / Working Paper

What is the best way of managing access to sensitive data? This is not a straightforward question, as it involves the interaction of legal, technical, statistical and, above all, human components to produce a solution. This paper introduces a modelli... Read More about Five Safes: Designing data access for research.

Operationalising principles-based output statistical disclosure control
Other

This document is intended to help support staff and managers in research environments to implement principles-based output statistical disclosure control of results generated from confidential sources of data. It contains extensive discussion on the... Read More about Operationalising principles-based output statistical disclosure control.

Measuring non-compliance with minimum wages
Preprint / Working Paper

Many countries have a statutory minimum wage for employees. There is a strong policy interest in knowing the degree of compliance with the law. Quantitative analysis is ideally suited to this, and many countries have rich datasets for employment rese... Read More about Measuring non-compliance with minimum wages.

Can a change in attitudes improve effective access to administrative data for research?
Preprint / Working Paper

The re-use of administrative data for social research holds great potential. From a privacy perspective, administrative data present some additional challenges, including lack of consent, existence of matching databases, and the association with data... Read More about Can a change in attitudes improve effective access to administrative data for research?.

Operationalising ‘safe statistics’: The case of linear regression
Preprint / Working Paper

The recent growth in research access to confidential government microdata has prompted the development of more general 'output-based statistical disclosure control' (OSDC) methods which go beyond tabular protection. Central to OSDC is the concept of... Read More about Operationalising ‘safe statistics’: The case of linear regression.