9 Statistics
(a)
(33844)
9122/12
COM(12) 167
(b)
34266
14230/12
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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?
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Legal base | (a) Article 338 TFEU; co-decision; QMV
(b)
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Documents originated | (a) 17 April 2012; (b) 26 September 2012
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Deposited in Parliament | (a) 26 April 2012; (b) 28 September 2012
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Department | Office for National Statistics
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Basis of consideration | EM of 19 October 2012
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Previous Committee Reports | (a) HC 86-iii (2012-13), chapter 10 (23 May 2012)
(b) None
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Discussion in Council | Not known
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Committee's assessment | Politically important
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Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information requested
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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
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