Official Statistics Order 2009

All members of the Committee will be aware of the important work being done by the UK Statistics Authority. The body was created by this Government last year with a statutory responsibility to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics. Two of its main functions are to monitor and report on official statistics, wherever they are produced in the UK, and independently to assess the quality of a core set of key official statistics for formal approval as national statistics. The order before us today relates to the definition of official statistics; that is, the set of statistics that the authority must monitor and report on. Under the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, which created the authority, all statistics produced by the Office for National Statistics, government departments, the devolved Administrations and other Crown bodies, are automatically deemed to be official statistics. This means that numerous bodies are automatically under the oversight of the statistics authority and must follow its code of practice. For example, the Insolvency Service, the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission and the DVLA are Crown bodies, and are thus official statistics producers. However, the Act also allows us to add further statistics by order, so that we can cover bodies that do not fall within this core definition but which clearly produce statistics that we feel it is important for the public to have trust in. Such bodies that do not fall within the core definition but which should produce official statistics include the Training and Development Agency for Schools and the Independent Police Complaints Commission. If a body is included in this order, the public can be assured that the statistics authority can monitor and comment on its statistical work. It also makes it possible for a statistic to be nominated for formal assessment as a national statistic, assuring the public that it has been produced in a way that is fully code compliant. During debates on a similar order last year—the first such order—the Government accepted that they would need to return to the House of Lords with a new list of bodies. The priority last time was to make sure that all producers of national statistics were covered, but other bodies were included with different departments applying different criteria for nominating bodies for inclusion. We have this year made the criteria clearer and the result, with which I hope the Committee will agree, is a more coherent list. The bodies in the list are producers of significant, national-level statistics which the Government feel are important that the public should trust. In the Act, the Government are required to consult the statistics authority before laying the order. Officials from the Cabinet Office have worked closely with the authority while drafting this order. The authority has had several opportunities to comment on the drafts. After the formal consultation required by the Act, the authority has said that it is content with the order before us today. We expect to update this list once a year. It is an advantage of the flexible definition in the Act that we can respond to changing needs and refine the list in this way, subject to parliamentary scrutiny. In summary then, the order extends the number of bodies which are subject to the UK Statistics Authority’s oversight. These bodies will have to work to the new code of practice for official statistics, and their statistics will have the potential to be nominated for formal assessment by the authority to be national statistics. It is a vital part of the Government’s statistical reform programme, allowing greater independent monitoring and assessment of official statistics in order to enhance public trust in statistics. I commend the order to the Committee.