Authority Diary - January 2009
The new Code of Practice for Official Statistics was published and came into force on 6 January 2009. The text of the new Code, and the principles and procedures by which the Authority will undertake statutory assessments against the new Code, was prepared following a 12-week public consultation between July and September 2008. Alongside publication of the Code, the Authority published two Monitoring Reports.
Monitoring Report 2 is a report on the Code consultation exercise, accompanied by a separate report containing the consultation responses. Monitoring Report 3 set out the Authority’s priorities for designation as National Statistics. It considers some 340 sets of official statistics not currently badged as National Statistics, and identifies 11 sets of statistics that it wishes to undertake a formal assessment against the new Code of Practice.
Also on 6 January the Authority published a Monitoring and Assessment Note which considered the recent release of knife crime statistics in a Home Office fact sheet, identifying areas where the presentation of statistics was deficient. The Code, Monitoring Reports, and M&A Note are all available on the Authority’s website, and can easily be downloaded direct from the 6 January press release on the News page.
The Authority Board met on 16 January in London. The Board discussed the priorities for Authority Monitoring Reviews to be published during 2009, proposals for improving statistical planning, progress with secondary legislation to enable data sharing between departments, management information and reference to official statistics in policy statements/documents, letters to Ministers providing notification of the Authority’s wish to assess statistics against the Code of Practice, and forthcoming improvements to the National Statistics Publication Hub.
The minutes and papers from the January Authority Board meeting will be published on the Authority website in due course. Minutes and papers of the December Board and previous meetings are published on the website on the About the Authority > Board and committee documentation pages.
In December Sir Michael Scholar, the Chair of the Authority, wrote to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, regarding the Land Registry’s House Price Indices. The Justice Secretary and Sir Michael have agreed that a working group chaired by the National Statistician will be convened to consider the issues raised by the Authority. Sir Michael also replied to a letter from the Scottish minister for enterprise, Jim Mather, continuing the debate between the Authority and the Scottish Government about pre-release access to official statistics, and setting out how the Authority envisaged reporting to the Scottish Parliament on statistical matters. The correspondence with Jack Straw and Jim Mather is available on the Authority’s website under Reports and Correspondence > Correspondence.
If you have any questions about the work of the UK Statistics Authority, or have any comments or issues that you want to raise with us, email authority.enquiries@statistics.gov.uk, write to us at: Statistics House, Myddelton Street, London EC1R 1UW, or telephone our enquiry line on 0845 604 1857.
Next issue of Authority Diary: 20 February 2009
