Data and its increasing potential to improve the way we work is a key priority area for the UK Government. Although it sounds complex – data is just another word for information. And it’s something we all collect, but don’t necessarily use to full advantage.

We know this, because for over 50 years as Great Britain’s health and safety regulator, we, as HSE have used robust analysis techniques to extract intelligence from the data we collect. We use it to inform and prioritise our regulatory activity, underpin our guidance and policy and support our scientific research activities.

A great example of this is HSE’s National Population Database (NPD) that enables the estimation of residents, workers and other population types in Great Britain and can be used for planning, risk assessment, logistics and any activity that has an impact on populations.