Statistics Office to shed political shackles

Statistics Office to shed political shackles

	Published : Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:15 By : David Simms Print this Story

LONDON: Chancellor Gordon Brown yesterday announced his decision to make the Office for National Statistics fully independent, in a move intended to restore public confidence in the government.

At the CBI’s annual conference here Brown said he proposed to give the ONS “the responsibility of a wholly separate body at arm’s length from government”. Opposition parties see the move as an effort to prevent further damage to his reputation which took a few knocks in recent times over Treasury fiscal rules.

Brown’s opponents have rarely let pass an opportunity to attack Labour with the issue of independence of the ONS. It was hard to argue with them, after all many of the top officials of the ONS were Brown’s colleagues from the Treasury.

The ONS does have operational independence but as it has to report to the Treasury, it has attracted criticism. Opponents find it easy to overlook that all ONS decisions comply with international norms and say that all its efforts are aimed to get a quiet word of approval from above. It is criticized also for the many revisions.

To be fair, the ONS has taken decisions that have often ruffled ministers; for instance, last year, it reported a drop in NHS productivity despite all the generous funding which irked health secretary John Reid. In the same year, the ONS had also classified Network Rail’s debt as outside of the public sector’s liabilities.

Despite its best efforts, the ONS is sometimes seen as a number-crunching lapdog of the government, a reputation which “has been very damaging for statistics as a whole” the ONS’s current chief Karen Dunnell said. Former chief Len Cook had even to endure name calling.

Most have welcomed Brown’s decision despite the added cost involved in making it free from political interference as it would ensure greater accuracy and impartiality.

The government will now set up an independent board comprising statisticians and experts from various fields, in much the same manner as Bank of England was made independent.

The ONS was set up to combine various government agencies – the Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys, the Central Statistical Office and the Department of Employment.