APPENDIX 6
Letter to the Clerk of the Sub-committee
from Mr David Webster, Chief Housing Officer (Policy Review and
Development), Glasgow City Council
Further to our recent telephone conversations, I
enclose a copy of my letter to Len Cook, the National Statistician
(with enclosure), dealing with the various issues in relation
to which ONS is not implementing the new Framework for National
Statistics. This will be of interest to the Committee in its current
inquiry.[5]
My letter to Len Cook deals with the duties
of the ONS under the Framework. There are three additional matters
concerning the duties of government and civil service which have
come to light in the course of preparing my letter:
1. In the Committee's oral evidence session
on 2 March, Melanie Johnson, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury,
gave an undertaking, repeated several times, that the National
Statistician would have a right of direct access to the Prime
Minister. The Framework as published in June, para 2.3 and 4.3.4(1),
gives only a right of access through the Head of the Home Civil
Service. This is not the same thing at all. The diluted right
of access weakens Mr Cook's position in relation to issues on
which ONS might need to be in conflict with an individual government
department, as in my view is the case with unemployment statistics.
2. One of the key points in the Framework
(paras 3.2 and 3.5) is the need for absence of political interference
and for this to be "clearly apparent to users". But
there appears already to have been political interference. The
government made a reply to the House of Commons Education and
Employment Committee's report Employability and Jobs: Is there
a Jobs Gap? (HC 60, 11 April 2000), which was received by
the House of Commons on 16 June 2000 and printed in HC 603 on
20 June 2000, some two weeks after publication of the Framework
on 7 June 2000. In its reply, the government (p vii) rejected
the recommendation by the Committee that it should publish the
Want Work Rate and (p xiv), in commenting on the recommendation
that ONS should undertake a review to establish whether unemployment
data should be presented in a workforce or residency-based form,
indicated that it wanted publication of "workforce"
unemployment "rates" (which are invalid) to continue.
In launching its consultation on unemployment rate measures in
Labour Market Trends (September 2000), ONS has simply implemented
these government views, and has withheld the issues from public
consultation. There is no statement that ONS has actually considered
the issues on its own behalf, or any evidence of such consideration.
If the Framework was being honoured, the government would have
said in so many words in HC 603 that it had a particular view
but that it would be for ONS to decide what was done, after consulting
the public. Similarly, ONS in launching its consultation would
have said that it had noted the government's views but that it
would itself make the decisions in line with the requirements
of the Framework after considering the evidence and submissions
made to it; it would certainly have invited views on the issues.
What we have therefore is certainly the appearance, and very possibly
the actuality, of political interference.
3. There appears to be a conflict between
the Framework and the Code of Practice on Access to Government
Information. The Framework requires that ONS shall maintain "a
transparent mechanism for taking into account the views
of users and providers of data in the priority setting process
(para 3.4) (emphasis added). But Government departments currently
appear to be allowed to make unlimited representations to ONS
before, during and after any public consultation, and under the
Code, the public have no right to know what they say. There is
clear evidence that in the area of unemployment statistics, the
DfEE has been allowed, in private representations to ONS, to have
not just the first bite of the cherry but the decisive bite. In
my view this conflict needs to be resolved by altering the Code
to provide that all representations to ONS by government departments
shall be published. Without this change, it is difficult to see
how the Framework's requirement that ONS should be free of both
actual and perceived political pressure can be delivered.
November 2000
5 Not printed. Back
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