The Central Statistical Office (CSO) was a British government department charged with the collection and publication of economic statistics for the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. It preceded the

Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; cy, Swyddfa Ystadegau Gwladol) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible for th ...

Establishment of the CSO

During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

directed the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Edward Bridges (later Lord Bridges), to advise him on how a central statistical office could be created in the Prime Minister's office in order to consolidate and issue authoritative working statistics. Following consideration, a formal announcement was made to establish the CSO on 27 January 1941 with the purpose of handling the descriptive statistics required for the war effort and developing national income accounts. Shortly afterward,

Harry Campion Sir Harry Campion, KCB, CBE (20 May 1905 – 24 May 1996) was a British statistician and the first director of what was the Central Statistical Office of the United Kingdom. He was also first director of the United Nations Statistical Office. ...

(later Sir Harry Campion), a member of the Central Economic Information Service in the Cabinet Office, was appointed director. After the war there was an expansion in the work of official statisticians resulting from the aim of managing the economy through controlling government income and expenditure using an integrated system of

national accounts National accounts or national account systems (NAS) are the implementation of complete and consistent accounting techniques for measuring the economic activity of a nation. These include detailed underlying measures that rely on double-entry ...

and in 1962, comprehensive financial statistics were published for the first time.

Development of the CSO

Following Sir Harry Campion's retirement in March 1967,

Claus Moser Claus Adolf Moser, Baron Moser, (24 November 1922 – 4 September 2015) was a British statistician who made major contributions in both academia and the Civil Service. He prided himself rather on being a non-mathematical statistician, and said t ...

(now Lord Moser), a professor of statistics at the

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

, was appointed director. Moser had the task of implementing proposals made by the House of Commons Estimates Committee in 1966, including the setting up of the

Business Statistics Office Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separat ...

to provide a centralised system of obtaining information from industry and the Office for Population, Censuses and Surveys to collect information from individuals and households through programmes of censuses, surveys and registers. He made major improvements in the area of social statistics in close partnership with the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys and paid particular attention to the development of the CSO's role of co-ordinating the statistical activities of individual government departments and the development of the

Government Statistical Service The Government Statistical Service (GSS) is the community of all civil servants in the United Kingdom who work in the collection, production and communication of official statistics. It includes not only statisticians, but also economists, socia ...

(GSS), of which he became the head in 1968. After eleven years of statistical development and reorganisation, Moser resigned on 1 August 1978. The third director of the CSO was John Boreham (later Sir John Boreham), Moser's deputy.

The Rayner Review

In 1979, a new government came into office with a review of the CSO and the Government Statistical Service as an early part of its policy of reducing the size of the

Civil Service The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

. This review, conducted by Sir, later

Lord Derek Rayner Derek George Rayner, Baron Rayner (30 March 1926 – 26 June 1998) was an English businessman, who was chairman and chief executive of Marks & Spencer, and revived and rapidly expanded the company in the 1980s. He began working for M&S in 1953 as ...

and known as the Rayner Review, was published in a government white paper in April 1981 and recommended that 'information should not be collected primarily for publication (but) primarily because government needs it for its own business'.Great Britain, Privy Council Office (1981) Government Statistical Services, ''Report of the Rayner Review'', London: HMSO. The Government accepted this recommendation and as a result, the CSO was cut by around 25% but continued to produce the same range of economic statistics.

Expansion of the CSO

After 35 years in the

, Sir John Boreham retired on 31 July 1985 and was succeeded by

Jack Hibbert Sir Jack Hibbert (14 February 1932 – 23 August 2005) was a British statistician and director of the Central Statistical Office (CSO) of the United Kingdom, 1985–1992. He was knighted in the 1990 New Year Honours. Background Sir Jack Hi ...

, who became the fourth director of the CSO. During 1986 and 1987, quality problems with the economics statistics produced by the CSO, due partly to the effects of deregulation and to changes to the structure of the economy, became apparent. A review conducted by

Stephen Pickford Stephen or Steven is a common English given name, first name. It is particularly significant to Christianity, Christians, as it belonged to Saint Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ), an early disciple and deacon who, according to the Book of Ac ...

made a number of recommendations for further research and more significantly, recommended greater centralisation of work on economic statistics. Consequently, the Business Statistics Office, most of the two statistics divisions responsible for data on imports and exports at the Department of Trade and Industry, and the statistics division responsible for the

Retail Prices Index In the United Kingdom, the Retail Prices Index or Retail Price Index (RPI) is a measure of inflation published monthly by the Office for National Statistics. It measures the change in the cost of a representative sample of retail final good, goods ...

at the

Department of Employment The Secretary of State for Employment was a position in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. In 1995 it was merged with Secretary of State for Education to make the Secretary of State for Education and Employment. In 2001 the employment functions ...

were merged with the CSO in 1989. An improvement programme followed in 1990 at the request of the then

Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...

John Major Sir John Major (born 29 March 1943) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997, and as Member of Parliament ...

, which focused on the national accounts and the balance of payments. In November 1991 the CSO was launched as an

executive agency An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Nort ...

, detached from the

Cabinet Office The Cabinet Office is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for supporting the prime minister and Cabinet. It is composed of various units that support Cabinet committees and which co-ordinate the delivery of government objecti ...

, which helped to put focus on the quality of service provided and gave an opportunity to restate publicly the arrangements to ensure the integrity of official statistics.

Creation of the Office for National Statistics

On 1 April 1996, the CSO merged with the

Office of Population Censuses and Surveys The Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS), was created in May 1970 through the merger of the General Register Office and the Government Social Survey Department. It was a forerunner and constituent, with the UK Central Statistical Of ...

(OPCS) to form the

(ONS) under a single director, Professor

Tim Holt Charles John "Tim" Holt III (February 5, 1919 – February 15, 1973) was an American actor. He was a popular Western star during the 1940s and early 1950s, appearing in forty-six B westerns released by RKO Pictures. In a career spanning mo ...

References

Bibliography

* Reg Ward and Ted Doggett, ''Keeping Score: The First Fifty Years of the Central Statistical Office'', Central Statistical Office, 1991. . * W. Rudoe, 'Obituary: Sir Harry Campion, 1905–96'. ''

Journal of the Royal Statistical Society The ''Journal of the Royal Statistical Society'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of statistics. It comprises three series and is published by Wiley for the Royal Statistical Society. History The Statistical Society of London was founded ...

''. Series A (Statistics in Society), Vol. 160, No. 1 (1997), pp. 148–151. {{Authority control Government agencies established in 1941 Organizations disestablished in 1996 Office for National Statistics

Defunct departments of the Government of the United Kingdom 1941 establishments in the United Kingdom Statistical organisations in the United Kingdom 1996 disestablishments in the United Kingdom