Letter from Chief Statistician, Office
for National Statistics to the Clerk of the Treasury Committee
ADVANCE NOTICE
OF DEVELOPMENTS
IN EDUCATION
PUBLIC SERVICE
PRODUCTIVITY AND
THE RESUMPTION
OF THE
PUBLIC SERVICE
PRODUCTIVITY SERIES
Following on from the launch of the UK Centre
for the Measurement of Government Activity (UKCeMGA) in July of
this year, I would like to draw your attention to a forthcoming
release from the Centre. On Monday 31 October at 9.30 am, UKCeMGA
will be publishing its first Education Public Service Productivity
article—this is the second in the series following on from
the Health Productivity article published in October 2004 and
marks the resumption of the Public Service Productivity Series.
The article has been subjected to independent
review by a Quality Assurance Panel under arrangements with which
boil the UKCeMGA Advisory Board and I are content.
In addition, a second Health Productivity article
is planned for early next year which will be followed by further
articles on the other functional areas that were explicitly considered
in Sir Tony Atkinson's Review.
You will be aware that my predecessor, Len Cook,
gave a public undertaking as to how he would deal with proposals
for methodological changes to the treatment of public output in
the National Accounts that involved significant change from existing
methodology. In particular, he noted that it was his intention
to submit such proposals to ONS's internal quality assurance procedures
only after there had been an opportunity for external debate and
it had been possible to assess the outcome of that debate. I propose
to continue with this undertaking. To help facilitate such debate
in the relevant areas, UKCeMGA is organising with the relevant
sponsoring public service departments a series of consultation
seminars to discuss public service productivity development work
with experts in the field—analysts and practitioners. The
aim of these seminars is to ensure that this work is made available
for as wide a consultation as is possible.
Finally, I would also like to take this opportunity
to note that the first meeting, of UKCeMGA Advisory Board took
place in September. Should you wish to know more about the discussion
that took place at the meeting, the papers and minutes are published
on the UKCeMGA webpage, as they will be for all future meetings.
I am also writing to the Clerk if the Education
and Skills Committee.
26 October 2005
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