The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has a senior sponsor for the Reproducible Analytical Pipelines (RAP) strategy implementation and has set up a dedicated central team to support business areas in building their capability, and developing and maintaining RAPs.
The RAP work programme is subject to oversight and governance from ONS Quality Committee and the Portfolio and Investment Committee. RAP is recognised as essential for generating efficiencies at ONS, and implementing RAP projects is an important component of our automation workstream.
Many business areas have built RAP into their Quality Improvement Plans and are working with the central team to deploy and prioritise RAP transformation.
ONS will:
Choose leaders responsible for promoting RAP and monitoring progress towards this strategy within organisations
Our senior sponsor for Reproducible Analytical Pipelines is Sarah Henry, the Director of Methods and Quality
Status: Completed
Success criteria: Leader appointed
Form multidisciplinary teams that have the skills to make great analytical products, with some members specialised in developing analysis as software
Test the multi-disciplinary team approach in at least one RAP deployment
Status: Not started
Success criteria: At least one ONS RAP project is produced by a multidisciplinary team of analysts and software engineers. There is a project evaluation to measure effectiveness.
ONS Analyst leaders will:
Promote a "RAP by default" approach for all appropriate analysis
The Analysis Standards and Pipelines (ASAP) team will report on RAP progress to the ONS Quality Committee.
Status: In progress
Success criteria: The ONS Quality Committee has quarterly reports on RAP progress, has strategic oversight of RAP transformation work and promotes "RAP by default".
The ONS efficiency programme will mandate the use of RAP
Status: Completed
Success criteria: The efficiency programme reports that RAP transformation has contributed to efficiency savings.
ONS senior leaders promote the importance of "RAP by default" to their teams
Status: In progress
Success criteria: Most RAP champions report that their leaders champion RAP.
Write and implement strategic plans to develop new analyses with RAP principles, and to redevelop existing products with RAP principles
Divisional directors plan and prioritise RAP rollout in their areas
Status: In progress
Success criteria: Every division identifies RAP projects in their Quality Improvement Plans. They work with ASAP and Quality Committee to prioritise and implement those projects.
Lead their RAP champions to advise analysis teams on how to implement RAP
Ensure that all ONS divisions have a nominated local RAP champion
Status: In progress
Success criteria: All ONS divisions have a nominated RAP champion. RAP champions work closely with central teams to ensure RAP work is supported and complies with best practice.
Help teams to incorporate RAP development into workplans
The Analysis Standards and Pipelines (ASAP) team will provide central mentoring support and guidance for teams and practitioner networks
Status: Completed
Success criteria: Analysts who are implementing RAP at ONS feel supported to do so. In 2023, 53.1% of analysts implementing RAP at ONS reported feeling supported.
Identify the most valuable projects by looking at how much capability the team already has and how risky and time-consuming the existing process is
Divisional directors plan and prioritise RAP rollout in their areas
Status: In progress
Success criteria: Every division identifies RAP projects in its Quality Improvement Plans. They work with ASAP and Quality Committee to prioritise and implement those projects.
Office for National Statistics (ONS) RAP champions will:
Support leaders in their organisation in implementing this strategy by acting as mentors, advocates and reviewers
The Analysis Standards and Pipelines (ASAP) team will provide central mentoring, support for teams and practitioner networks
Status: Set up completed. The ONS RAP Champion network is active and meets regularly.
Success criteria: There are monthly RAP champion meetups within the ONS.
Manage peer review schemes in their organisation to facilitate mutual learning and quality assurance
The ASAP team will facilitate community peer review of code
In progress. A peer review scheme is currently being piloted within one directorate, with plans to roll out wider if successful.
Success criteria: ONS-wide RAP peer review network is up and running by end September 2024.
Peer review network to review at least 10 RAP projects during 2024
Status: In progress. This target was not met in 2023 due to resource pressure. The RAP team undertook nine code reviews throughout 2023, alongside 14 consultancy projects.
Success criteria: ONS RAP peer review network undertakes at least 10 peer reviews by the end of 2024.
ONS Analyst managers will:
Evaluate RAP projects within organisations to understand and demonstrate the benefits of RAP
Business areas will work with ASAP to record the efficiencies and costs associated with RAP deployment.
Status: In progress. ASAP's Service Level Agreement (SLA) mandates that this should be considered.
Success criteria: All RAP projects evaluate the pre-transformation resource, development time and resource required for post-transformation operation.
ASAP will work with the ONS evaluation team to quantify the end-to-end benefits of RAP transformation
Status: In progress. The RAP team are exploring additional methods to quantify these benefits.
Success criteria: We are able to quantify the end-to-end benefits generated by RAP transformation.
Mandate their teams use RAP principles whenever possible
Managers work with ASAP to ensure that best practice is well understood and implemented in teams
Status: In progress. We are updating the RAP minimum standards for ONS to mandate more core practices.
In 2023, the mean basic RAP score was 2.87 out of 6. A further breakdown of this figure is available from the Coding in Analysis and Research Survey (CARS) 2023.
Success criteria: Basic minimum viable product (MVP) RAP score from CARS for ONS.
ONS Analysts will:
Engage with users of their analysis to demonstrate the value of RAP principles and build motivation for development
No activities planned for 2024
Status: Not started
Deliver their analysis using RAP
Analysts will participate in 18 planned RAP transformation projects during 2024
Status: Met in 2023. ONS resolved 23 transformation projects in 2023, either through consultancy or as part of a review.
Success criteria: 18 RAP projects successfully completed each year.