1. Wiesbaden Group - Tallinn 2010 Session 4:Lessons Learnt from an Administrative Data Failure
Andrew Allen

2. Background
Two main administrative sources : VAT and Pay as you earn tax- PAYE
VAT - daily birth & deaths - main source
PAYE - second source- quarterly employment

3. New PAYE system
In revenue department notified us of the plan to create a new computer system.
ONS worked closely on the data requirement
A transition process was agreed
Technical data for testing etc

4. The problem First files received were processed on the test database
ONS holds a test version of the business register for testing system enhancements and changes
Results from the test system indicated there were differences between the old and new PAYE datasets

5. Tactical Solution Quality problems were reported to HMRC.
A new temporary solution was developed to extract data from the data warehouse in HMRC.
Came too late , so we missed one quarters data.
Register could not cope - had to roll forward previous employment

6. Tactical Solution Available
The data from the tactical solution had to be extensively tested.

7. Quality Assurance Individual record checks
Known employments were checked in high profile cases
Checks against Business Register Employment survey records
Telephoned sample of businesses to check suspicious employment

8. Quality Assurance Aggregate checks
Check growth in employment caused solely by PAYE records.
Many businesses updated by register survey or other surveys
So needed to isolate - then check the impact of the PAYE records

9. Quality Assurance 3
Number of PAYE schemes changing from zero to non zero and vice versa
Used information from Annual Survey of Hours to check for inappropriate pension records

10. Impact Checks have meant no significant impact on surveys
Residual risk limited because most large business updated from the Business Register Survey
PAYE used for mostly small businesses - around 17% of total employment

11. Lessons Learnt
Administrative data is not perfect. Tax system designed for collecting tax not statistics.
Important to have multiple data sources - were able to validate using these. Also impact lessoned
Eg BRS and VAT

12. Lessons 2 Work closely with administrative data supplier
To build understanding of the data
This crisis led to workshop with key staff in HMRC - learnt more about the data.
Different terminology between statistics and administrative world

13. Lessons 3 Beware of users trying to stretch the register data too far.
E.g. full time equivalent employment

14. Conclusions Dependent on administrative data
Quality cannot be controlled
So :
Multiple sources good
Knowledge of data
Dialogue with suppliers