The Government Statistical Service - UK Statistics Authority

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The National Statistician has initiated a
large-scale programme of work to build
on the quality of population statistics
(the MSI work programme) and, within
this, is implementing recommendations
made in the interdepartmental Task
Force on Migration Statistics in 2006
and the subsequent House of Commons
Treasury Committee report Counting the
Population in 2008.
The work programme was set up in April
2008 and involves the GSS working
in partnership across government to
improve methods and sources used in
the production of population estimates.
Key departments involved include
Communities and Local Government
(DCLG), Department of Health (DH),
Home Office (HO), Department for
Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and
Department for Universities Innovation
and Skills (DIUS).
The improvement work is organised into
five streams:
gaining better information on
migrants as they enter and leave the
country
improving the methods and reliability
of Local Authority level population and
migration estimates
using alternative administrative
and survey sources in population
estimation
provision of relevant and timely
analyses and indicators associated with
population
developing a more coherent approach
to the reporting of migration across
government
The programme is steered by a senior
cross government programme board, and
has a ministerial group, jointly chaired
by the Minister for Immigration and the
Minister for Local Government, to inject
pace and facilitate cross-departmental
working.
Programme Achievements
Entry and Exit data
A series of improvements have been
made to port surveys, including
introducing additional survey shifts at
key ports for the International Passenger
Survey (the main source for international
migration estimates) to provide more
contacts and better coverage of migrants.
From January 2009 a more fundamental
change of emphasis of the survey
towards gathering migration information
was implemented.
ONS have worked in partnership with
the Home Office to ensure that statistical
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