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Title: Will you be a statistically savvy Assembly Member?
Dear [candidate]
I want my Assembly Member to put evidence and statistics at the heart of policy debate. The
decisions made by the National Assembly for Wales on crucial policy issues such as health,
education and transport, should be based on what really works, using robust and relevant
data.
To ensure this is the case, the Royal Statistical Society believes that all decision-makers
should be given basic training in statistics. This would provide the knowledge they need to
make good decisions for the people they represent, and help avoid costly miscalculations.
After the Welsh election, the Royal Statistical Society will be running a series of short
statistics workshops at the Assembly for Members and their staff.
Will you give me a commitment that, if you are elected as my Assembly Member on
the 5th of May, you will attend a statistics workshop?
The workshops will cover a range of areas including; probabilities, surveys and data
presentation. It will be entry-level training, with a specific focus on Welsh policy issues, to
outline the good use of statistics, and help avoid some of the common pitfalls when dealing
with public data sets.
The Royal Statistical Society will be in touch with Assembly Members after the election to
arrange a suitable timeslot for the workshop.
Please do make this commitment to statistical awareness by agreeing to attend a workshop
at the Assembly if you are elected. I would be grateful if you could reply to let me know if you
will commit to this.
Best wishes
[constituent name]
The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is a learned society and professional body for statisticians and
data analysts, with almost 8,000 members in the UK and across the world. As a charity, we advocate
the key role of statistics and data in society, and have done so since we were founded in 1834. One
of our six key strategic goals is for society to be more statistically literate, so that people’s
understanding of data, risk and probability can inform their daily decision-making.