Publications

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, even where the government has a duty to provide data. This paper argues that the way the question is framed may be restricting the set of possibilities; and that the…

Recent statistics indicate increases in the number of people presenting and being accepted as homeless by Welsh local authorities and there is major concern that this trend is likely to accelerate given the wider economic context, including the austerity measures. Therefore it is timely that the Welsh Government has commissioned a review of homelessness legislation…

The aim of the study is to: ‘assess the effectiveness of the Enterprise, Business Finance, and R&D and Innovation areas of the Programmes. The survey will provide useful information on the outcomes achieved to date by the businesses assisted and financially supported by ERDF projects. In addition, recommendations for the Structural Funds Programmes in Wales…

The ethical governance of social research is now well entrenched within the academy in the UK and elsewhere. Whereas, in the not so distant past, ethical research practice was a matter for the researcher to articulate and manage, research ethics are now a matter for institutions to govern. Departmental or University ethics committees or boards…

Disclosure detection and control for analytical outputs is an almost unexplored field. However, with the increase in access to detailed microdata, it is becoming increasingly important to be able to quantify exactly what the risks are from allowing, for example, regression coefficients to be released. This paper looks in detail at the risks of linear…

Statistical disclosure control (SDC) in a research environment poses particular problems. Most SDC research is concerned with ensuring that a finite set of tabular outputs are safe from disclosure, or that microdatasets are sufficiently anonymised. By its nature, a research environment is one where confidential data is made available for analysis with very few restrictions….

The aim of the ESF Leavers’ Surveys is to assist in assessing the effectiveness of the ESF Convergence and Competitiveness Programmes in Wales. To date, separate reports based upon analysis of the 2009 and 2010 surveys have been published. Taken together, the combined programme of research has contributed to a step shift change in our…

This study, carried out between 2009 and 2011, was set within the context of the safeguarding children policy agenda, particularly the notion that child protection is ‘everybody’s business’. The research aimed to explore everyday safeguarding of children at neighbourhood level, including how safeguarding is seen, experienced and carried out by residents, community leaders and professionals….

Access to restricted microdata for research is increasingly part of the data dissemination strategy within countries, made possible by improvements in technology and changes in the risk-benefit perceptions of NSIs. For international data sharing, relatively little progress has been made. Recent developments in Germany, the Netherlands and the US are notable as exceptions. This paper…

The immigration flows to the UK that followed European Union (EU) enlargement in 2004 is thought to have constituted the largest wave of immigration in the UK’s history (Salt and Rees, 2006). One of the main factors behind these very large inflows was the UK government’s decision to more or less allow the free movement…