Fact checking is a process that needs to balance pace and accuracy. Pace because it’s important to address misinformation as quickly as possible. Accuracy because we/the facts need to be trustworthy in our checks – but that takes time.
Getting to the bottom of hundreds if usa rcs data not thousands of potentially misleading claims, so that we can take the action and gain the impact described above, can take some doing. of the UK Data Service.
We have tended to make use of the Nesstar tool, which allows for a high-level interface to large datasets. This has supported our work in researching things like regional housing tenure, the reasons for young people being in NEET status, and a cross-tab comparison of people with zero hours contracts who are members of a trade union.
One of the things that stands out about the UK Data Service is just how much they care about users. They make incredible efforts to reach out to users and make its data more accessible. Staff at Full Fact have attended many webinars from them in the past and found them a very good grounding of the scope of UK Data Service data and methods of how to access them.
The UK Data Service and the services it offers make our lives as fact checkers easier.