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London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

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Jeremy Quin Jeremy Mark Quin (born 24 September 1968) is a British politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Horsham since the 2015 general election. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Minister of State for Crime, Poli ...

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Minister for the Cabinet Office The Minister for the Cabinet Office is a position in the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom. The minister is responsible for the work and policies of the Cabinet Office, and since February 2022, reports to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan ...

, chief1_name = Sir Robert Chote , chief1_position = Chair of the UK Statistics Authority , chief2_name =

Ian Diamond Sir Ian David Diamond (born 14 March 1954) is a British statistician, academic, and administrator, who served as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Aberdeen until 2018. He became the UK's National Statistician in October 2019. ...

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National Statistician The National Statistician is the Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority, and the Head of the UK Government Statistical Service. The office was created by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. The UK Statistics Authority announce ...

, chief3_name = , chief3_position = , chief4_name = , chief4_position = , chief5_name = , chief5_position = , chief6_name = , chief6_position = , chief7_name = , chief7_position = , chief8_name = , chief8_position = , chief9_name = , chief9_position = , parent_department = Cabinet Office , child1_agency = , website = The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA, cy, Awdurdod Ystadegau'r DU) is a non-ministerial government department of the

Government of the United Kingdom ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_es ...

responsible for oversight of 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 t ...

, maintaining a national

code of practice A code of practice can be a document that complements occupational health and safety laws and regulations to provide detailed practical guidance on how to comply with legal obligations, and should be followed unless another solution with the same ...

for official statistics, and accrediting statistics that comply with the Code as ''National Statistics''. UKSA was established on 1 April 2008 by the

Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (c 18) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which established the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA). It came into force in April 2008. Sir Michael Scholar was appointed as the first Cha ...

, and is directly accountable to the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

Background

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony B ...

, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced on 28 November 2005, that the government intended to publish plans in early 2006 to legislate to render the

(ONS) and the statistics it generates independent of government on a model based on the independence of the

Monetary Policy Committee Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) may refer to: * Monetary Policy Committee (India) The Monetary Policy Committee is responsible for fixing the benchmark interest rate in India. The meetings of the Monetary Policy Committee are held at least fo ...

of the Bank of England. This was originally a 1997 Labour Party manifesto commitment and was also the policy of the

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

and

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

parties. Such independence was also sought by the

Royal Statistical Society The Royal Statistical Society (RSS) is an established statistical society. It has three main roles: a British learned society for statistics, a professional body for statisticians and a charity which promotes statistics for the public good. ...

and the

Statistics Commission The Statistics Commission was a non-departmental public body established in June 2000 by the UK Government to oversee the work of the Office for National Statistics. Its chairman was Professor David Rhind who succeeded the first chairman, Sir J ...

. The

, who is the chief executive of the ONS, would be directly accountable to Parliament through a widely constituted independent governing Statistics Board. The ONS would be a non-ministerial government department so that the staff, including the Director, would remain as civil servants but without being under direct ministerial control. The National Statistician at the time,

Karen Dunnell Dame Karen Hope Dunnell, DCB, FAcSS (''née'' Williamson; born 16 June 1946) is an American-born British medical sociologist and civil servant. She was National Statistician and Chief Executive of the Office for National Statistics of the U ...

, stated that the legislation would help improve public trust in official statistics although the ONS already acts independently according to its own published guidelines, the National Statistics Code of Practice, which sets out the key principles and standards that official statisticians, including those in other parts 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 ...

, are expected to follow and uphold. The details of the plans for independence were considered in Parliament during the 2006/2007 session and resulted in the

. In July 2007, Sir

Michael Scholar Sir Michael Charles Scholar, KCB (born 3 January 1942) is a British civil servant and former President of St John's College, Oxford. Personal Life and Education He was educated at St Olave's Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge ( B ...

was nominated by the government to be the three-day-a-week non-executive chairman of the Statistics Board which, to re-establish faith in the integrity of government statistics, has statutory responsibility for oversight of UK government statistics and of the Office for National Statistics. It also has a duty to assess all UK government statistics. Following Gordon Brown's later announcement on his 2007 appointment as

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 i ...

of new constitutional arrangements for public appointments, Sir Michael also became, on 18 July, the first such nominee to appear before the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

Treasury Committee and to have his nomination subject to confirmation by the House. On 7 February 2008, following the first meeting of the shadow board, it was announced that the body would be known as the UK Statistics Authority. UKSA was established on 1 April 2008 by the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, and is directly accountable to the

. It reports to Parliament through the Minister for the Cabinet Office.

Functions

Formally, the UK Statistics Authority has two main functions: a production arm – the Office for National Statistics – and a regulatory arm – the Office for Statistics Regulation.

Office for National Statistics

The ONS is responsible for collecting, analysing and distributing statistical information about the UK's economy, society and population. It replaces the role previously performed by

HM Treasury His Majesty's Treasury (HM Treasury), occasionally referred to as the Exchequer, or more informally the Treasury, is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for developing and executing the government's public finance policy and ...

ministers.

Office for Statistics Regulation

The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) performs independent monitoring of official statistics, including assessment of the coverage, completeness and usefulness of statistics in particular areas. The OSR is also responsible for maintaining a Code of Practice for Official Statistics, and accrediting Code-compliant statistics as 'National Statistics'. However, the chair can also act to comment on perceived misuse of official statistics by persons responsible or accountable for them. The assessment function has an operational role of producing reports on code compliance of specific sets of national statistics, and also a role making more strategic recommendations for the improvement of statistical outputs, in terms of both the presentation and coverage of official statistics as well as monitoring public trust in government statistics. The UKSA has reported on the need to improve commentary supporting the release of official statistics, and the procedures and extent of pre-release access to official statistics by government ministers. The authority has also produced reports on the impact of cuts to specific statistical activity, such as the citizenship survey, especially where these changes affect users in other bodies. Other reports focus on statistics relating to a particular sector such as health and charities both of which have relevant data collected by more than one government body. A specific stream of work has been on user engagement, identifying the uses of official statistics and the extent to which the needs of users are taken into account by producers.

Current Board members

''Ex officio'' executive members

As well as the nine non-executive members of the Board, there are three civil servants who serve as executive members as a part of their jobs. They are: * Prof. Sir Ian Diamond FBA FRSE FAcSS, the

and head of the

, took up post 22 October 2019 * Ed Humpherson CB, the Authority's Head of Assessment, responsible for the independent assessment of official statistics * Sam Beckett, second permanent secretary, takes the third executive place on the board which had previously been held on a rotational basis by the deputy national statisticians The three Office for National Statistics (ONS) Directors General normally attend meetings of the board but are formally not members: * Mike Keoghan, ONS Director General and Deputy National Statistician for Economic, Social & Environmental Statistics * Alison Pritchard, ONS Director General and Deputy National Statistician for Data Capability * Pete Benton, ONS Director General and Deputy National Statistician for Health, Population & Methods

Former Board members

References

External links

* {{Authority control Non-ministerial departments of the Government of the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics Government agencies established in 2008 2008 establishments in the United Kingdom