Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg.

We are working on a new and improved platform for StatsWales to keep up with technological updates and user needs. As a consequence, our OData services will not be available from the end of August. This is because Microsoft will stop supporting the technology and our new solution will not be ready until 2025.  
 
This post explains what will happen, how it will affect you and what temporary arrangements we are putting in place.

What will happen and how it will affect you

The StatsWales platform allows people to find, view and download data about Wales. One of the ways that people access data from this platform is through a service called OData. This allows people to access and use data in an automated, programmatic way (using what’s known as an API – an Application Programming Interface).  
 
The current technology that the StatsWales OData service uses will be retired by Microsoft at the end of August 2024. To keep the OData service running, we would need to update this part of the technology. However, this would be costly and difficult to do because of the age of the StatsWales site. At the same time, we are developing a new version of StatsWales, with a new API service, which means that the current site has a limited life span.  
 
Therefore, we have decided not to update the OData technology. This means that the current OData service will stop working at the end of August.  
 
The rest of the StatsWales site will not be impacted by this change. You will still be able to find, view and download data from the site in other ways.

A temporary way to access the same data

We understand that ending the current version of the service will cause disruption to people who use it. We are working on a temporary solution that will allow you to automatically access the data that was available via the OData service in a different way.

We are still testing this temporary solution and we will provide an update on this blog in the coming weeks.

The future of StatsWales

The Welsh Government is developing the next version of StatsWales. The current version of StatsWales has been around for 12 years and, as the situation with OData shows, it is reaching the end of its life.  
 
We are creating a modern and bilingual open data service that makes the use of data easy, intuitive and accessible, no matter your level of data literacy. An API service, for accessing open data in an automated programmatic way, will be a key feature of how the service works. The new service is currently in the private beta phase and will be live in 2025. If you would like to participate in the user research and testing as we develop this new service, please contact stats.info.desk@gov.wales.