The Statistics Commission was a

non-departmental public body In the United Kingdom, non-departmental public body (NDPB) is a classification applied by the Cabinet Office, Treasury, the Scottish Government, and the Northern Ireland Executive to public sector organisations that have a role in the process o ...

established in June 2000 by the

UK Government His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

to oversee the work of the

Office for National Statistics The Office for National Statistics (ONS; ) is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Parliament. Overview The ONS is responsible fo ...

."Framework for National Statistics", First Edition, Operational from June 2000
/ref> H.M. Treasury press release announcing outcome of White Paper and creation of the Commission
/ref> Its chairman was Professor

David Rhind David Rhind FRSE (1808 – 26 April 1883) was a prominent Scotland, Scottish architect, mainly remembered for his public buildings, banks, churches and schools, most of which are now listed buildings. Life Rhind was born at 15 Gayfield Plac ...

who succeeded the first chairman, Sir John Kingman, in May 2003.List of Statistics Commissioners
/ref> Although it was non-departmental, the commission was funded by

grant-in-aid A grant-in-aid is money allocated from a central/state government to subnational governments to provide specific services or fund specific projects. Such funding is usually used when the government and the legislature decide that the recipient ...

from the

Treasury A treasury is either *A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry; in a business context, corporate treasury. *A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be ...

.Frequently-asked-questions on the Commission's website
/ref> Following the implementation of the Statistics & Registration Services Act 2007, the commission was abolished. Its functions were to be taken over and considerably enhanced by the

UK Statistics Authority The UK Statistics Authority (UKSA, ) is a non-ministerial government department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for oversight of the Office for National Statistics, maintaining a national code of practice for official statist ...

(UKSA), whose powers began on 1 April 2008 under the chairmanship of 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. Education He was educated at St Olave's Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge ( BA Classics and Moral ...

. Professor Rhind is among the non-executive members of the new authority, to which the ONS is accountable. This contrasts with the duties of the previous Commission which were limited to reporting, observing and criticizing ONS while it, until 2008, has been publicly accountable via a Treasury minister.

History

The Commission arose from an

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

manifesto A manifesto is a written declaration of the intentions, motives, or views of the issuer, be it an individual, group, political party, or government. A manifesto can accept a previously published opinion or public consensus, but many prominent ...

commitment by the Labour Government whilst in Opposition to provide independent national statistics. The commitment was implemented by the Government first publishing a

Green Paper In the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth countries, Hong Kong, the United States and the European Union, a green paper is a tentative government report and consultation document of policy proposals for debate and discussion. A green paper represen ...

in 1998 inviting consultation which offered four options for overseeing the production of statistics for ministers. The subsequent

white paper A white paper is a report or guide that informs readers concisely about a complex issue and presents the issuing body's philosophy on the matter. It is meant to help readers understand an issue, solve a problem, or make a decision. Since the 199 ...

revealed that, of those four options, the one which received significantly more support than the others was the establishment of a Commission Consequently, in drawing up the new framework for national statistics,Treasury announcement of the Framework document
/ref> the Statistics Commission was established. Its main function is to :''"...give independent, reliable and relevant advice on National Statistics to Ministers and, by so doing, to provide an additional safeguard on the quality and integrity of National Statistics."'' The white paper charged the commission with four principal aims: *To consider and comment to government on National Statistics's programme and scope of work *To comment on National Statistics's

quality assurance Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design ...

processes and to arrange

audit An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon." Auditing al ...

s where it finds concern *To comment on the application of the code of practice for official statistics *To prepare for the UK

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

an annual report on National Statistics and the Commission

Commissioners

The last commissioners were: * Professor David Rhind, formerly

Vice-Chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth of Nati ...

and President of City University, London *Ian Beesley, a retired senior partner at

PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers, also known as PwC, is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, alon ...

and Fellow of 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. ...

*Sir

Kenneth Calman Sir Kenneth Charles Calman (born 25 December 1941) is a Scottish doctor and academic who formerly worked as a surgeon, oncologist and cancer researcher and held the position of Chief Medical Officer of Scotland, and then England. He was Warden ...

, Vice-Chancellor and Warden of the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charter in 1837. It was the first recognised university to ...

*Janet Trewsdale, chairman of the Northern Ireland Economic Council * Sir Derek Wanless, formerly a director of

Northern Rock Northern Rock, formerly the Northern Rock Building Society, was a British bank. Based at Regent Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, Northern Rock was originally a building society. It demutualised and became Northern Rock bank in ...

plc * Colette Bowe, chairman of the

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

Consumer Panel * Patricia Hodgson, governor of the

Wellcome Foundation The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome (founder of Burroughs Wellcome, one of the predeces ...

and non-executive director of the

Competition Commission The Competition Commission was a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom. It was a competition regulator under t ...

* Martin Weale, director of the

National Institute of Economic and Social Research The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), established in 1938, is Britain's oldest independent economic research institute. The institute is a London-based independent UK registered charity that carries out academic researc ...

* Joly Dixon, a retired director at the

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

and Fellow of the

The chief executive was Richard Alldritt

References

"Framework for National Statistics", First Edition, Operational from June 2000H.M. Treasury press release announcing outcome of White Paper and creation of the Commission

List of Statistics Commissioners

Frequently-asked-questions on the Commission's website
# #{{cite book, author=H.M. Treasury, date=October 1999, title=Building Trust in Statistics (Command Paper), publisher=The Stationery Office Books, url=http://www.statistics.gov.uk/StatBase/Product.asp?vlnk=10543&Pos=&ColRank=1&Rank=272, isbn=0-10-144122-3 , id=Cm. 4412
Treasury announcement of the Framework document

External links

The Statistics Commission's website

The Office for National Statistics' website
Defunct non-departmental public bodies of the United Kingdom government Office for National Statistics 2000 establishments in the United Kingdom

History

Commissioners

See also

References

External links