Important arguments have been made against data-sharing
generally; in particular, that it may breach individual privacy
rights. Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights, for example,
has on occasion expressed the view that sufficient safeguards
should be in place to prevent sharing of data from contravening
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights respecting
personal privacy. Any move to extend data access for statistical
purposes would need to be accompanied by specific safeguards for
privacy rights and enhanced data protection provisions.[241]
171. The ONS told us that legislation on access to
administrative data was something that it was "very keen
to see happen".[242]
The ONS has said elsewhere that the UK has "vast data resources"
which the GSS "has the professional competence and capacity
to exploit", but that the lack of express statistics legislation
guaranteeing statisticians access to the data resources of central
and local government meant that statisticians were "obliged
to work within a complex and changing legislative framework to
gain access to data obtained by others in government".[243]
The ONS has argued that "administrative records may be the
only cost effective way of regularly obtaining information about
small groups in household or business populations".[244]
It has identified a number of economic and social benefits which
would arise from increased data-sharing, including the production
of new statistics and the reduction of the burden on respondents.
It argued that data-sharing could lead to "improved statistical
quality" and "much greater efficiency in terms of cost
and timeliness".[245]
172. The former National Statistician, Len Cook,
in his response to the Government's consultation paper, identified
a number of risks associated with a lack of access to administrative
data:
Unless there is access to tax records the (Allsopp[246])
proposals for regional economic statistics, and redesigning British
economic statistics, will not reach their final goal. The risk
of population estimates containing significant errors at a local
authority level will continue without access to administrative
records. Statistics about ethnic populations exist mainly through
the once every ten year population census, until access to administrative
records is provided to ONS.[247]
Mr Cook concluded that providing the GSS with the
authority to have access to administrative records and to protect
all statistical records would be "the largest possible improvement
to the quality of British statistics" that could be enabled
by legislation.[248]
173. Access to administrative data by statistical
institutions is provided by law in many countries, including Australia,
Canada, Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands.[249]
Responding to the Government's consultation paper, the Australian
Statistician said that the Australian Bureau of Statistics' access
to taxation data had enabled it to reduce "compliance cost
on the business sector by over 40% over the last 10 years".[250]
The Chief Statistician of Canada told us that part of the Canadian
Statistics Act provided Statistics Canada with "unrestricted
access" to all administrative records held by any level of
government and any organisation private or public:
Of course, the other side of that coin is extremely
strong confidentiality guarantees, which are spelled out and which
allow no exceptions. Not even the intelligence community, not
even the police, not even the courts in the course of a prosecution
can have access under the Statistics Act.[251]
174. The ONS also suggested that public concerns
over the sharing of data might not be insurmountable. It cited
research by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, showing
that the public expected data to be shared across Government,
provided that those granted access to the data used them "for
a purpose consistent with its original collection".[252]
175. The Minister told us that the legislation represented
an opportunity to deal with some of the questions around data
access, in particular access to administrative data.[253]
He said that, "as a minimum", the current arrangements
would need to be entrenched in legislation and told us that the
Government had "clearly signalled" its interest in hearing
views during the consultation process about the extent to which
these arrangements could be developed further.[254]
He said that the Government was also seeking views on how confidentiality,
particularly of "micro data" which could identify individuals,
could be safeguarded.[255]
178. The former National Statistician, Len Cook,
raised concerns about this aspect of the Government's proposals
in his response to the Government's consultation paper. Mr Cook
argued that protection of household survey records not covered
by the Census Acts or the Statistics of Trade Act was currently
ensured only by "custom and practice, and the vigorous protection
of this through the courts by ONS officers". Mr Cook commented
that that the capacity to protect properly gathered information
in the UK was therefore "declining" and that "solutions
for the protection of records [needed] a statutory basis".[257]
Mr Cook called into question the Government's proposal to make
protection of confidentiality a core objective of the independent
board rather than of the National Statistician:
For the board to have this responsibility …
will quite wrongly remove from the National Statistician his/her
authority and independence on this important matter. The future
legislation must provide for the statistician to have the obligation
in law to protect the confidentiality of all statistical records.[258]
180. The Statistics User Forum told us that statistics
derived from administrative sources were "terribly important
to a lot of users".[259]
The Forum raised the issue of Government agencies and departments
controlling data through exclusive rights and third party contracts.
It told us that "a great number of users of statistics"
described the lack of access to Ordnance Survey map background
data as "a matter of considerable frustration".[260]
The Forum explained that Ordnance Survey, local government and
the Post Office had come together in 2005 in an attempt to establish
a national spatial address infrastructure, but that their attempts
had foundered, not because of technical inadequacies, but because
of "arguments about intellectual property rights and money".[261]
The Forum told us that, from a users viewpoint, the liberal approach
to data access practised in the United States had "immense
attractions".[262]
181. The Forum also referred to dissatisfaction among
users with the ONS website. The Forum said that even professional
users did not always find it easy to find the right series and
that librarians told them that non-professional users were "unable
to use the website without help".[263]
The Forum told us that the ONS had been informed of these problems
and that it understood that the ONS was now making provision for
a new website, but that progress had been "very slow".[264]
182. The ONS' website received an average of 700,000
visitors a month between April 2005 and January 2006, up from
an average of 533,000 a month in the same period in the previous
year.[265] The Departmental
Report 2006 states that the ONS aims to further improve the
website's functionality over the next year.[266]
