Question reference: S6W-04678
- Asked by: Willie Coffey, MSP for Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 30 November 2021
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Current status: Answered by John Swinney on 9 December 2021
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider routinely publishing all the data and statistics that it produces with a breakdown by parliamentary constituency, in addition to local authority or NHS board, in order that all elected members representing those constituencies can be fully informed about data trends within the communities they represent, and what the reasons are for its position on this matter.
Answer
The Scottish Government aims to publish data at local and regional levels including parliamentary constituencies wherever it is possible and appropriate to do so. A large amount of data is already published at the level of parliamentary constituencies by the Scottish Government via its Official Statistics open data platform statistics.gov.scot .
In some cases however it may not be possible or appropriate to publish data at this level. In some cases data may not be collected at a level that allows for aggregation at parliamentary constituency level, it may not be possible due to issues of confidentiality, or due to concerns around the robustness of estimates produced for some areas. The collection and publication of statistics should also be proportionate to the requirements of the users of statistics, including the level at which decisions are made or services are delivered.
Such decisions about the appropriate level of geography at which to collect and publish data are made on a case by case basis and are done so based on user engagement activity and in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics . This approach is also consistent with the Government Statistical Service Geography Policy and the upcoming Government Statistical Service Subnational Data Strategy.