Getting AOC connected to the Office for National Statistics

Simon Hutchinson, Louise Corti, and Gemma Thomas, Office for National Statistics (ONS) Secure Research Service

A tourist was lost in the deepest countryside, and finally recognising that he needed to find some help, they stopped the car to ask a local farmer if they knew the best way to Penzance.

The farmer pondered on the question, and after lengthy consideration they eventually responded by saying, ‘Well, first I wouldn’t start from here’.

Before we explain this tale, a bit of context is useful… The Office for National Statistics Secure Research Service (SRS) gives accredited or approved researchers secure access to de-identified, unpublished data from the UK in order to work on research projects for the public good. We have been accredited as a Digital Economy Act (DEA) 2017 processor by the UK Statistics Authority for the preparation and provision of data for research purposes.

The SRS provides a safe setting, as part of the Five Safes Framework to protect data confidentiality. The framework is a set of principles adopted by a range of secure labs, including the ONS. Most datasets are available to access through remote access to the SRS. In some instances, the data can only be accessed from an approved safe setting.

Fundamentally the ability of the SRS to provide data depends on the confidence of the data owners in the protection provided. Without this trust, no data would be released to the SRS or be available for research.

Assured Organisational Connectivity (AOC) accreditation provides the assurances to our data owners that an institution has the right security infrastructure in place for their researchers to access these valuable data via ‘remote access’, from their work-based offices. This ‘safe setting’ is one of the key safeguards and allows accredited researchers safe access to the secure data available in the Secure Research Service environment (SRS).

For those of us who manage AOC accreditation, we often share the view of the farmer, because very frequently the process starts in the wrong place.

Since COVID-19, AOC has been a saving grace for a large number of research organisations because without remote access, researchers would not have been able to access the secure data they needed for their projects.

Before our remote access service was first launched, access to the SRS was only available through ‘safe rooms’, which are physical locations situated in ONS buildings. As demand for our services increased, AOC was introduced as a means of increasing access opportunities, opening them up to research locations where assurances could be met.

With the start of the pandemic, AOC was further expanded on a temporary basis, to offer remote working from home.

If an organisation is not already AOC accredited, the impetus to make it happen will come from the researcher, simply because they need access to the data.

From here the journey can flow in one of two directions:

1) If the researcher engages successfully with their organisation, to get buy-in and ownership, completing an AOC can be a quick and painless process.

2)  Without an organisation fully engaging, the researcher can take months to find the right people in its own organisation to obtain the necessary signatures and assurances, which leads to frustration and sometimes, poor feedback on our services.

By spreading the word widely about the value of AOC and the importance of organisational involvement in the process, we are actively working to support researchers and their organisations and are reviewing our processes to make sure we are helping them at the right point in their journey. We aim to ensure that while the (current) starting point may not be right, that everyone gets to their destination quickly and safely.

We’re conducting an exclusive webinar for ARMA on Thursday 11 November 2021 at 10am on this topic. In the meantime, if you’d like to find out more about AOC, then please send us an email at SRS.Connectivity@ons.gov.uk.  A second webinar will follow on 13 January 2022 on Accelerating impact from research using ONS data

Simon Hutchinson is Head of Assured Organisational Connectivity (AOC) for the Secure Research Service at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and this is his second role in the organisation, having previously worked on the successful 2021 Census. Before ONS he worked for 20 years in the retail sector, using technology to deliver customer and business facing omni-channel and operational services, for companies including ASDA, Mothercare and B&Q. In his spare time, he’s a keen paddleboarder and podcaster.

Louise Corti is Head of Insights, Development and Impact for the Secure Research Service, at the Office for National Statistics (ONS), joining this year. For 20 years she was Associate Director at the UK Data Archive, UK Data Service, where she directed a range of operations across the research and data lifecycle concerning the sharing, curation and reuse of data in the social sciences. Louise has sat on a number of international advisory boards for social science data services and is co-author of the handbook on Managing and Sharing Research Data: A Guide to Good Practice.