Governance of official statistics: redefining the dual role of the UK Statistics Authority; and re-evaluating the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007

Contents

Committee information

The UK’s statistical system

Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007

Current UKSA roles

Statistics in a changing world

The Committee’s inquiry

2 Use of statistics

Statistics in public life

Understanding how statistics are used

User engagement

User engagement strategy

Statistics that serve the public good

Relevance of statistics to users

3 Governance of official statistics

The dual roles of production and regulation

How UKSA has separated the functions of production and regulation

The creation of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)

How effective has UKSA been?

Code of Practice for Statistics

Public interventions

Pre-release of official statistics

Independence in engaging with powerful users

Retail Prices Index

Does statistical legislation need to change?

Improving the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) under the present Act

Future role and resourcing of OSR

4 Governance of UKSA

Accountability of UKSA

Accountability to the UKSA Board

The role of non-executive members

Accountability to Parliament

Accountability to Government

Accountability through external reviews

Accountability to users

Accountability to the public

Clarity of structures

5 RPI - a case study

Background to RPI

UKSA’s approach to RPI

Governance of RPI

Current position

6 Governance of the statistical system

Leadership and culture

Government Statistical Service

Heads of Profession

Technology and use of data

Administrative data and new data sources

Data literacy and data ethics

Next UKSA Strategy

Conclusions and recommendations

Annex 1: Previous PASC and PACAC work on statistics

Published written evidence

List of Reports from the Committee during the current Parliament

<Committee information

Published: 18 July 2019