Meteoologists define spring in the UK to be the period from March to May so spring is now over and we are officially in summer. The 2018 spring was very sunny but this hides the fact that our spring climate has changed quite notably over the last 25 years.
UK Weather Tracker #16 – May 2018
I hope you enjoyed the sunniest May on record! It was also the second warmest May on record though the Met Office chose to sow confusion by claiming it was the warmest on record.
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UK Economy Tracker #0 – My New Tracker Explained!
Welcome to my first tracker post of the UK economy! I intend this to be similar in format to my UK Weather Tracker except that it will be published quarterly rather than monthly. In this post I will explain the statistics I have chosen to track.
I am a big believer in placing recent statistics in their historical context. Nothing annoys me more than someone overexplaining a small dip in GDP which in historical terms is absolutely meaningless. Unfortunately we live in a world cursed by the year on year comparison without any understanding of basic time series concepts such as autocorrelation and reversion to the mean. So one hope I have with my Economy Tracker is to improve this state of affairs.
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Pay Gap Case Study #1 – Life on Mars
The UK is facing the challenge of interpreting the first round of gender pay gap data. I listed some of the challenges in my article “the 7 ways to misuse gender pay gap data“ where in statement 4, I concluded a lack of understanding of the laws of chance will result in unjustified allegations of gender discrimination against some organisations. In this article, I want to demonstrate the laws of chance using nothing more than some dice and coins, a process known as simulation. My simulation model is simple enough for you to repeat by yourselves and at the end, you will have a better idea of the extent to which median gender pay gaps can vary even when organisations do not discriminate in any shape or form.
*** This article was edited on 25th January 2025 to bring it in line with my current style guide. There is no material change to the content.
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Pay Gaps #2 – 1 in 10 organisations have published incorrect gender pay gap data. Are you one of them?
The first round of gender pay gap data is now available for all organisations employing more than 250 employees. The UK now faces the challenge of interpreting this data and using it properly which will not be easy given “the 7 ways to misuse gender pay gap data” I recently wrote about. In the short term, there is an immediate need to resolve errors in the data published and I will demonstrate that potentially 10-15% of organisations have entered incorrect data into the government’s database. [Read more…] about Pay Gaps #2 – 1 in 10 organisations have published incorrect gender pay gap data. Are you one of them?
Pay Gaps #1 – 7 ways to misuse gender pay gap data
April 2018 was the deadline for submitting gender pay gap results and we now have the first detailed picture of how pay differs between men and women in the UK. A nifty government website can be used to look up pay gap details for any company employing more than 250 employees and you can also download the results for further analysis. So what will happen next? Will the data be used properly to inform debate about how men and women are paid or will it be misused for personal and political gain?
I believe this data can be of benefit to the debate around gender equality but my fear is that to begin with, it will be misused, misinterpreted and reinforce the saying “lies, damned lies and statistics”. So if you want to misuse gender pay gap data, who better to ask that a professional statistician like me who will show you how you can do this by commenting on 7 plausible statements.
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Pay Gap Data #1 – Where can I find gender pay gap data for 2017?
This post is out of date. Please click here for a later version.
The government requires all organisations employing 250 or more employees to submit gender pay gap data. The first set of submissions were completed in April 2018 but these figures refer to pay made in April 2017 i.e. a year ago. Organisations can submit their 2018 data now if they wish and not wait for the deadline of April 2019. All data is available to the public and can be found on the government’s gender pay gap website. I have downloaded this data and created a spreadsheet tool to present the data in a more user-friendly and visual format.
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UK Weather Tracker #15 – April 2018
Whilst the UK fluctuated between heatwaves and snowstorms in April, overall the monthly averages ended up being unremarkable. It just goes to show that in many ways, our experience of weather is in the variation rather than the expectation. [Read more…] about UK Weather Tracker #15 – April 2018
EPL 2017/18 #5 – My Prediction of the Final League Table – Round 36
With only 3 or 4 games to go for the teams of the Premier League, most of the season’s excitement has dissipated. Man City have wrapped up the title, the top 7 who will be playing in Europe next season is more or less settled and the former 10-team dogfight for relegation has resolved itself with a 4 point gap between the bottom 3 and the rest. Probably, the only remaining uncertainties are who will take 4th place (Spurs or Chelsea) and will Southampton escape relegation at the expense of Swansea?
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EPL 2017/18 #4 – My Prediction of the Final League Table – Round 33
After many weeks of a relegation dogfight involving up to 10 teams, it now appears that an exciting finish to the 2018 EPL season is becoming less likely as a gap opens up between the bottom 3 and the rest. After 34 matches, another gap is opening up between the 4 prediction methods I use and one method so far has a 74% success rate in predicting the match outcome.
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