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Government Statistics

My Lords, I, too, join in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton of Epsom, for bringing this matter to the attention of your Lordships today. I wish to declare a close and pecuniary interest as a deputy chairman of the UK Statistics Authority. Noble Lords will recall that this body came into being in April 2008 as a result of legislation contained in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. As the authority has now been up and running for just over 12 months, I thought it might be helpful to inform noble Lords of progress that has been made by highlighting some of the events of the past year, as the authority unfortunately does not report to a Joint Committee of Parliament, which was the unanimous proposal of your Lordships' Liaison Committee in January 2008 in its first report of that Session. One of the principal reasons for the Government's desire to create the authority was to restore public confidence in official statistics, a confidence which had been greatly eroded with the passage of time by either actual political manipulation and interpretation or the perception thereof. Therefore, from April 2008, the Office for National Statistics reported to this independent body rather than, as hitherto, to the Treasury. The authority itself reports to Parliament through the Public Administration Committee. Since April 2008, the authority has initiated action to achieve four principal objectives: to improve statistical planning; to maintain high professional standards; to improve communication of statistics and related advice; and to build the trust of those who use official statistics in the statistical service and the authority. These objectives are being achieved by the authority assuming direct responsibility for the ONS, through a principal operating committee—the ONS board, which I chair—on the one hand, and on the other hand by the establishment of a monitoring and assessment team based in London, Newport and Edinburgh to carry out independent investigations and assessments of all official statistics against the code of practice that we published in January. The code of practice was published after a 12-week public consultation period, which included the devolved Administrations. This activity is under the supervision of the authority’s second principal operating committee, the Committee for Official Statistics, chaired by Professor Sir Roger Jowell, the other deputy chairman of the authority. In the first months of our existence, we went live with UK National Statistics Publication Hub website, which separates statistical releases produced by professional statisticians from ministerial or political commentary. It has been noted that it has also been necessary in this first year for the authority to challenge undue political influence in regard to knife crime and, more recently, immigration statistics. As a result of the former instance, guidance was issued by the Cabinet Secretary to all non-statisticians working in government on how to use official statistics, how best to work with statisticians, and, above all, the importance of everyone respecting the code of practice. These events, among others, demonstrate that the authority can, and will, act to challenge undue political influence, without fear or favour. The authority's mission, enshrined in the legislation, is to safeguard and promote official statistics for the public good. I can assure noble Lords that that is what we will continue to do. The authority operates transparently so that both Parliament and the public can see what it is doing to build the trust required. The authority's board papers are published; a public record is maintained of all issues that have been raised with us; and we publish our correspondence. These are but examples of the beginning of a determined work programme initiated by the authority with the support of Parliament, government and the Government Statistical Service. As an end-of-year report card, the Royal Statistical Society, in March 2009, included a statement in which it said the authority had passed, ""its first test with distinction"," but recognising, as we all do, that there is still much to be done. In conclusion, I am also pleased to report that the physical location of much of ONS’s operations to Newport, which was an issue strongly questioned during the passing of the Act in this House, is almost complete and will have been achieved through the excellent co-operation and understanding of staff without any diminution of quality of service.