Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-297)
MS KAREN
DUNNELL, MS
JIL MATHESON
AND SIR
MICHAEL SCHOLAR
28 JANUARY 2008
Q280 Ms Keeble: What is your thinking
on that?
Sir Michael Scholar: I have already
responded personally about that. I am sure you will recall that
when the Treasury Committee interviewed me in July prior to my
appointment—
Q281 Ms Keeble: I was not present
for that one, I was away.
Sir Michael Scholar: The Chairman
asked me that very question and my reply to him was to say that
I thought it would be better if the power to determine pre-release
arrangements had been given to the Board rather than retained
by the Government, but since that is a feature of the legislation,
and it is therefore not in any way in the short-term alterable,
I said I felt that the announcement made by the Prime Minister
in early July that pre-release times would be reduced to a uniform
24 hours was an improvement on the pre-existing situation but
did not go far enough.
Q282 Ms Keeble: So what would you
like to see?
Sir Michael Scholar: I think I
said, and recently reiterated when the Government produced their
pre-release consultation document, that I thought we should be
in line with the very best international practice and that suggested
certainly no longer than the three hours which I think this Committee
itself recommended a while back.
Q283 Ms Keeble: In terms of the many
very onerous tasks that are going to confront the new Board, what
do you see as being the priorities?
Sir Michael Scholar: The priority
is to try to rebuild trust in UK statistics. At the beginning
of this present session I think it was Mr Ainger who referred
to the fact that in a recent piece of work commissioned by the
European Commission the UK came 27th out of 27 in terms of public
trust in its statistics and that is a very deplorable number.
It points to the same conclusion as the survey carried out by
the ONS a couple of years ago. It seems to me that our first priority
has to be to try to remedy that deficiency and to restore public
trust or rebuild the public trust in UK official statistics.
Q284 Chairman: Just on the structure
of the Board, will one of your deputies have particular responsibility
for looking at the population count in the Census or is that something
that you are going to take the lead on yourself?
Sir Michael Scholar: That will
remain to be discussed by the Board. Initially I have indicated
that one of the deputy chairmen would have particular responsibility
for the management of the ONS and the other would have particular
responsibility for the assessment and monitoring of the whole
statistical system, the former being David Rowe-Beddoe and the
latter being Professor Adrian Smith. How we will fit particular
important topics into that pattern I am not yet quite clear.
Q285 Ms Keeble: On the issue of the
management, are you going to look at the whole issue of the management
and the locations of staff? Are you going to reopen that issue?
Sir Michael Scholar: The Board
is charged with the duty of managing the ONS, that is clear, that
is in the legislation and that is one of our important tasks,
and if you are managing an organisation you have to have regard
to its location, its premises, its retention, its recruitment
and so on and so forth, and I think the Board is bound to consider
all these issues.
Q286 Ms Keeble: Although it is only
a Shadow Board and you have not got formal responsibility, when
you look at what is happening at ONS and you look at issues around
the confidence that people have in the statistics, are you satisfied
that the current arrangements are proving satisfactory or do you
feel there is an issue about the location of staff and confidence?
Sir Michael Scholar: I hope you
will understand me if I say I do not feel at the moment that I
want to say I am satisfied about anything. I have not really started
yet and I have not met my Board. I have not had a discussion with
the Shadow Board. Before I meet the Board I think it would be
foolish of me to say that I am satisfied with any feature of the
present arrangements.
Q287 Ms Keeble: Does that mean it
is all up for grabs?
Sir Michael Scholar: No, it does
not mean that. It means that we are going to go about our work
in a serious and deliberative way and I am not going to respond
to questions and give snap judgments about what is going well
and what is not going well and what should happen and what should
not happen. I would like to consider these things properly with
my colleagues and then reach conclusions.
Q288 Ms Keeble: But you must accept
that there is pressing public interest in this because it is an
issue that has been open to debate for a very considerable period
of time and about which there have been concerns expressed, and
that there are very profound implications in terms of confidence
in statistics which earlier you said you thought was down to the
Government to address, and also that part of the point of having
the new arrangements was proper accountability to the public.
People will want to know, and I suspect they will want to know
sooner rather than later, what is happening, and that is just
because it is important. People want to know what is happening.
Sir Michael Scholar: I accept
that. Perhaps I should just make absolutely clear what I said
so that there is no misunderstanding about it. I was not saying
it is the responsibility of Government to rebuild trust in statistics.
It will be the responsibility of my board after 1 April to do
so, but it is not yet our responsibility. At the moment it remains
with the Government until 1 April and so I am afraid I am not
going to answer every question that you just put to me. I do not
think it would be right to do so.
Q289 Ms Keeble: The fact remains
that these are issues that people have been concerned about and
are absolutely critical to things like the inflation figures and
to all kinds of things that affect people in their day-to-day
lives. There have been a lot of questions asked about this. This
meeting is a public meeting and it does give you an opportunity
as an incoming person in charge of this area to say what your
views are. It is not unreasonable to think that you might want
to give some indication as to what your thinking is on these very
critical issues, which are critical to my constituents as well
as to the staff of ONS.
Sir Michael Scholar: I accept
that they are very important issues, absolutely, and I accept—I
do not just accept; I insist—that my board will very quickly
grapple with them and you will very quickly find that after 1
April the board will be expressing views on the important issues
which you have just raised.
Ms Keeble: A week is a long time.
Q290 Chairman: You are not implying
that questions from this department are unreasonable, I hope.
Sir Michael Scholar: I certainly
do not wish to imply or say that.
Q291 Jim Cousins: I wonder if I could
just ask you this. Have you given any consideration to your reporting
or accountability to Parliament for your work, because we have
got two strikingly different models? We have got, as it were,
the traditional model, which is an annual report covering everything
you can think of, published usually well into the year following
the year referred to on the one hand, and on the other hand we
have got the Monetary Policy Committee, which is almost real time.
Those are two strikingly different models and I wonder if you
have given any consideration to what sort of model you would be
likely to adopt. I would not be devastated if you told me no,
you have not, but it would be useful for the Committee to know
when you are going to reach conclusions about that so that we
can guide our parliamentary colleagues.
Sir Michael Scholar: I have thought
a good deal about that, actually, and I have had discussions with
a number of members of this House and also members of the House
of Lords about it. I have expressed the view that it is absolutely
vital that there should be strong parliamentary scrutiny of the
work of the board and at the same time support for the board in
Parliament. If the board does its job properly it will sometimes
find itself in conflict with departments and with ministers and
if that should arise it will require strong parliamentary scrutiny
to bring these issues into the open so that Parliament and the
public are aware of what in the board's view it is necessary to
do to improve UK statistics in the way the board desires. I put
it in that general way. I have also put it in a more specific
way to some of your colleagues, that it would be very helpful
if there were a committee which specialised in the work of the
board, a statistics committee, which no doubt would meet quite
often, perhaps not exactly in real time, to use your phrase, but
would meet quite frequently so that the board's output could be
subject to timely scrutiny. The response I have so far had is
that the channels that consider these matters in the House of
Commons are perhaps unlikely to agree with that suggestion and
will suggest that the board's work is dealt with by the various
departmental select committees which exist already, including,
of course, most importantly, the Public Administration Select
Committee, to whom the board would naturally principally report
since the ministerial responsibility for the board is being switched
from Treasury to the Cabinet Office. If that were the decision
I am bound to say that I would be disappointed because I think
there is great merit in a committee of Parliament developing expertise
and having a focused responsibility for statistical matters.
Q292 Jim Cousins: That is very helpful,
Sir Michael, and gives us something to think about in our own
discussions, but can I put it to you: will it be your view that
it is up to Parliament to scrutinise and ferret these things out
or will the board itself, if it has a matter of concern about
something topical, flag that up?
Sir Michael Scholar: The latter,
certainly. I think it will be the board's duty to discover where
there are deficiencies in UK official statistics and in the handling
of those statistics, and to bring those directly to Parliament's
attention.
Q293 Jim Cousins: So it will be your
intention to report to Parliament?
Sir Michael Scholar: Absolutely.
Q294 Jim Cousins: Not just, as it
were, annually, but when you feel that there is a matter of concern?
Sir Michael Scholar: If Parliament
will listen we will report to it.
Jim Cousins: Yes, Parliament will listen.
Nothing gets the juices running in Parliament more than the atmosphere
of the Roman arena, but how hard it is, Sir Michael, sometimes
to tell the Christians from the lions.
Q295 Chairman: A final question from
me. Karen Dunnell, we should have asked you about the Home Office
e-Borders programme. How much assistance will that be in ensuring
robust population estimates?
Ms Dunnell: We believe that it
will be a help. It will not provide all the answers but it will
give us information about who is leaving the country and who is
entering the country. Of course, before it will become useful
we will have, together with the Home
Office, to do a lot of analysis to identify different
patterns of movement that will help us to make better estimates
but it will be the first time that we have actually had, as it
were, a 100% count of these movements.
Q296 Chairman: But the Bank of England
suggested that only a representative sample would be needed at
first. Do you agree with that? Will you have a sample before 2009?
Ms Dunnell: Sorry—a representative
sample of what?
Q297 Chairman: A representative sample
of those coming in and out.
Ms Dunnell: That is what we intend
to do through our International Passenger Survey and that is what
we are at the moment increasing the sample size of to get a better
fix on this issue.
Chairman: We need to leave it there.
Thank you all very much.
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