Documents considered by the Committee on 7 November - European Scrutiny Committee Contents


9 Statistics

(a)  

(33844)

9122/12

COM(12) 167

(b)

34266

14230/12


Draft Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No. 223/2009 on European statistics


European Court of Auditors Special Report No 12/2012 Did the Commission and Eurostat improve the process for producing reliable and credible European statistics?

Legal base(a) Article 338 TFEU; co-decision; QMV

(b) —

Documents originated(a) 17 April 2012; (b) 26 September 2012
Deposited in Parliament(a) 26 April 2012; (b) 28 September 2012
DepartmentOffice for National Statistics
Basis of considerationEM of 19 October 2012
Previous Committee Reports(a) HC 86-iii (2012-13), chapter 10 (23 May 2012)

(b) None

Discussion in CouncilNot known
Committee's assessmentPolitically important
Committee's decisionNot cleared; further information requested

Background

9.1 Regulation (EC) 223/2009, commonly referred to as the "European Statistical Law", is the framework legislation for the European Statistical System, comprising the Commission's statistical office (Eurostat) and producers of official statistics in Member States. It defines the actors in the system, its objectives, its governance and key statistical principles. European statistics are defined as "relevant statistics necessary for the performance of the activities of the Community". All other legislation under which EU statistics are produced must be made in accordance with the European Statistical Law.

9.2 In April the Commission proposed in the draft Regulation, document (a), amendments to four key features of the European Statistical Law:

  • the coordinating role of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) of Member States;
  • the role and professional independence of the head of the NSI;
  • self-assessment of the European statistics produced by a Member State and a published statement of confidence in them; and
  • enhanced access to administrative data.

9.3 When we considered this proposal we said that, although it was intended, laudably, to improve confidence in the quality and reliability of statistics produced in the context of the European Statistical Law, we noted the reservations expressed by the Government on some aspects of the proposals. So before considering the document further we asked to hear about progress in addressing the problematic issues in working group discussions.[19] We still await that information so this document remains under scrutiny.

The new document

9.4 This European Court of Auditors' (ECA) Report on Eurostat, document (b), considers particularly whether processes have improved to achieve full compliance with the European Statistics Code of Practice. In the Report the ECA:

  • makes recommendations on the role of Eurostat which, if adopted, would shift the balance of competency for the supervision of compliance with the European Statistics Code of Practice in Member States from national statistical authorities to the Commission;
  • finds that the European Statistics Code of Practice, which is consistent with that of the UK, has only been partly implemented by the Commission and by statistics authorities in Member States;
  • finds a lack of verification and enforcement of compliance with the Code;
  • finds that the work programmes for European statistics have design flaws that hamper their use to plan and monitor delivery of quality statistics;
  • recommends change to the European Statistical System (ESS) to guarantee professional independence, adequate resources, and strong supervision, including sanctions where quality standards are not met; and
  • makes recommendations that would give Eurostat a direct supervisory and investigatory role for ensuring code compliance within Member States.

The Government's view of the new document

9.5 The Minister for the Cabinet Office (Mr Francis Maude) says that:

  • Parliament has established policies and practices for assessing the UK's compliance with national and EU codes of practice for official statistics, as set out in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007;
  • the ECA confirms that an ESS peer review of the UK's performance against the European Statistics Code of Practice in 2008 found that the UK either 'fully met' or 'largely met' all 35 indicators in the Code;
  • the UK's model for ensuring compliance with codes of practice is the preferred model of the Eurostat, in that it is based on self assessment and independent accreditation within the statistical system of the Member State;
  • the ECA's recommendations that would give Eurostat a direct supervisory and investigatory role for ensuring code compliance within Member States is not necessary; and
  • the ECA makes a number of recommendations that the Government could support, including a more systematic approach to the identification of priorities in the development of statistical work programmes and less bureaucratic administration of grants to Member States.

9.6 The Minister also observes that:

  • the draft Regulation, document (a), includes measures relevant to the recommendations in the ECA Report, in particular the Commission's proposal for Member States to publish a "Commitment on Confidence" in their official statistics and embedding professional independence and high quality standards within national statistical systems;
  • the Government is supporting these proposals in current negotiations, but only in so far as they do not conflict with the subsidiarity principle and have a positive effect on the reliability and credibility of EU statistics as a whole;
  • Commission Decision 2012/504/EU on the role of Eurostat,[20] published four days before the ECA Report, has been presented by the Commission as its "Commitment on Confidence"; and
  • both the amending draft Regulation, document (a), and this Decision when implemented may address some of the ECA's recommendations.

Conclusion

9.7 We remind the Minister that we await a report on progress in addressing the problematic issues in the draft Regulation in working group discussions. We should also like to hear at the same time how the ECA's recommendations in document (b) have played into those discussions. We are particularly interested in any threat to the subsidiarity principle and a possible direct Eurostat supervisory and investigatory role for ensuring code compliance within Member States. Meanwhile both documents remain under scrutiny — but we alert the Government now that we may well wish to recommend them for debate before the draft Regulation is recommended for adoption by the Council at first reading.





19   See headnote. Back

20   See http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:251:0049:0052:EN:PDF. Back


 
previous page contents next page


© Parliamentary copyright 2012
Prepared 16 November 2012