Authority Diary - September 2009
Sir Michael Scholar, Chair of the Authority, addressed the Annual Conference of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) at the University of Edinburgh on 10 September. Sir Michael's speech, which can be viewed in full on the Authority website on the News page, focussed on the progress made by the Authority during its first 18 months and on its priorities for the future. The Authority also hosted a reception before the RSS Conference dinner on the evening of 10 September to mark the opening of the Authority's Edinburgh office in Walker Street.
The Authority Board met at the Authority's Edinburgh office on 11 September. The Board welcomed Jil Matheson to her first meeting of the Authority since her appointment as National Statistician from 1 September. At its meeting the Board received a progress report on developments following correspondence on the Authority's views on the needs to establish a national address register; discussed what major statistical policies the Authority would like to see in place in the longer-term to strengthen its role in building trust in official statistics; received an update on substantive current statistical issues; received a progress report on the Monitoring and Assessment programme; and agreed to the publication of Assessment Reports 10 to 12 (see below).
The minutes and papers from the September Authority Board will be published on the Authority website in due course. Minutes and papers of the July Board and previous meetings of the Board are published on the website on the About the Authority > Board and committee documentation pages.
Following several letters in support of the Authority's position regarding the need for the development and maintenance of a national address register, Sir Michael Scholar wrote again to the Minister of State for Housing and Planning on 25 September. During September, Lord McKenzie of Luton, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government also replied to Sir Michael's first letter to Mr Healey, sent in July.
On 21 September, the Authority replied to David Green, Director, Civitas following his complaint about the presentation and analysis of statistics in a report published by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission on Social Housing Allocation and Immigrant Communities. Correspondence is available on the Authority’s website under Reports and Correspondence > Correspondence.
The Authority published a further three Assessment reports on 16 September on the Scottish Health Survey (Scottish Government); Scottish House Conditions Survey (Scottish Government); and Scottish Crime and Justice Survey (Scottish Government). These are available on the website under Monitoring & Assessment > Assessment reports.
If you have any questions about the work of the UK Statistics Authority, or if you have any comments or issues that you want to raise with us, please 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.
