Examination of Witnesses (Questions 168-179)
MS KAREN
DUNNELL, MR
DENNIS ROBERTS
AND MR
MIKE HUGHES
7 JUNE 2006
Chairman: We have to draw a line there.
Thank you both very much for coming to help us this afternoon.
Q168 Chairman: Can I welcome you back
to the Sub-Committee. Could you introduce yourself and your team
formally, please?
Ms Dunnell: Karen Dunnell, the
National Statistician, and this is my colleague Dennis Roberts,
who is the Executive Director of ONS responsible for corporate
services and registration service, and Mike Hughes, who is the
Executive Director responsible for national statistics policy.
Q169 Chairman: Thank you very much
for coming today and for being so patient this afternoon. You
are right at the centre of this. When did you first hear that
the Chancellor was going to make National Statistics independent?
Ms Dunnell: There have been many
discussions about the independence of statistics. Indeed, the
framework document in 2000 was the beginning of that, and, of
course, the review of the arrangements was due in 2005, which
was the year I was appointed, and when I was appointed I was told
that something was going to happen on independence, so it did
not come as a complete surprise at all.
Q170 Chairman: That was in the summer;
so you had a few months to get your head round what might happen?
Ms Dunnell: Yes.
Q171 Chairman: You have been involved
since that point, presumably, in helping the Government draft
its proposal?
Ms Dunnell: Absolutely. We work
very much as a team. Two of my Executive Directors have been on
the steering committee, Mike and another colleague, and Dennis
has run all the work that we have done internally, so it has been
very much a joint effort.
Q172 Chairman: Have you reached any
early conclusions as to how much needs to be done to provide for
a transition to the new arrangements? Have you done work on that?
Ms Dunnell: I will hand over to
Dennis in a minute, because he is looking after that, but, yes,
work is in train through this consultation period.
Mr Roberts: This is one of the
issues which we ourselves have given thought to, and also we have
had guidance from the non-executive members of the ONS Board,
many of whom have lived through similar transitional circumstances.
It is important, I think, as Professor Rhind said earlier, that
as we reach the actual date for the changeover things are in good
order so that the new governing board can get off to a flying
start. This applies to some of the aspects which are particularly
new, such as the assessment function for statistics as set out
in the consultation document. We, are already giving some thought
as to how we might start to pilot some of the procedures during
the time until the arrangements come into effect so that we will
be able to advise the governing board at an early stage on how
they should introduce the new arrangements, and we are giving
similar thoughts to the other new aspects which are set out there.
Q173 Mr Todd: Your figures for 2005
show that only 17% of the public believe that official figures
are produced without political influence, only 14% believe that
the Government use figures honestly. Does that matter?
Ms Dunnell: We believe it does,
yes, because we spend our whole life producing these things. They
are extensively used by both government and local government and
various groups out there, and, therefore, it is very important
that they are trusted; so one of our key goals is to do something
about that.
Q174 Mr Todd: Is it a new problem?
Ms Dunnell: No, I do not think
it is a new problem.
Q175 Mr Todd: You remember Disraeli's
quotation?
Ms Dunnell: We do, and unfortunately,
of course, that is one of the things we have to live with in our
society, that any time anybody ever questions statistics that
quotation, which I will not repeat, is quoted again, and so I
think that is how the public and the media see it.
Q176 Mr Todd: The symbiotic relationship
between statisticians and politicians is hardly a new topic?
Ms Dunnell: No.
Q177 Mr Todd: Would you welcome having
a policing role with the ability to highlight abuses of statistics
by politicians and others, since politicians are not alone in
this thought?
Ms Dunnell: Yes, I do welcome
it. In fact, we have it at the moment because we have a code of
practice and, if we have a breach of the code, we investigate
it. Mike, would you like to say a bit more about that process?
Mr Hughes: I am afraid to say
I have to disagree with David Rhind, with whom I normally have
a fantastic working relationship, because we have an agreement
with them where, whenever there is a perceived breach, his staff
talk to mine and that is investigated thoroughly and we report
back to them. In fact the number of those breaches is very small.
I think the major part of the problem here is that in almost all
cases they relate to statistics that come from administrative
sources, and ministers in departments need that information as
part of the normal on-going management of their processes. It
is very difficult, and it is one of the major lacunas of the original
code of practice that we did not deal effectively with administrative
data. We have actually got some work ongoing at the moment. We
were planning before we knew about the legislation to produce
a protocol on this to see if we could find a way of managing it.
Many of these perceived breaches are ministers actually rehearsing
information they get as part of their administration of departments
rather than through the statistical lines. In reality, and in
terms of statistics that come from surveys and inquiries, the
incidence of breaches is very, very small.
Q178 Mr Todd: You probably heard
David Rhind being very politely dismissive of the code of practice,
I thought. Do you share that view?
Ms Dunnell: No, I think that one
of the major developments that has happened in the last five years
since we had the existing framework document is the development
and publication of a very comprehensive code of practice. That
is not to say that I think it does not need constant review, and
one of the things we were going to do anyway was to look at it,
make sure it does not have any gaps in it and, also, I believe
it can be made much easier to understand, because he did refer
to some ambiguity in it, and I think we can deal with that by
better drafting.
Q179 Mr Todd: Should it be statutory?
Ms Dunnell: The idea that there
is a code which is statutory, yes, I think so, but I do not think
we want the detail of the code to be statutory because I think
it needs to evolve with changing times.
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