Statistics and Registration Service Bill

The chair will be appointed in the way that I explained, but members of the board will be appointed through the established OCPA process. They will be appointed formally by the Treasury, because under the Bill the Treasury has residual functions that are required of the Government, relating to the independent statistical system and the independent statistics board. Turning to amendments Nos. 8, 10 to 14, 46 and 47, we expect the National Statistician to undertake executive functions, including statistical production, through the executive office that the National Statistician is required to establish. Under clause 29(2), the National Statistician can exercise all the board’s functions, with some limited exceptions, so as to ensure a clear separation from the board’s assessment function. There is another protective lock on the professional primacy of the National Statistician’s role. The National Statistician will advise the board on all statistical matters. If the board overrules the National Statistician’s advice on technical issues, it will be required to publish the reasons why and report them to Parliament. That is the importance of the National Statistician’s role as the board’s chief professional adviser. Ultimately, the National Statistician and the executive office exercise the functions of the board under the board’s direction. The board will be the legal entity statutorily responsible for the exercising of the functions established in the Bill. That provides the Government with a structure that allows corporate oversight of executive and assessment functions, while allowing us to maintain a single centre of expertise for statistics. As I said, the board replaces the role that Ministers currently play in overseeing and supporting the National Statistician, and it is therefore the board, not Ministers, who will be held to account for delivering the statutory functions of the Bill. If the board is given statutory responsibility, and is accountable for delivering those functions, it must ultimately have responsibility for them, even though in most cases the board will have the functions discharged by the National Statistician and her executive office. I repeat that I believe that we have introduced the right system, overseen by the board. Ultimately, accountability will be shared by a group; it will not rest with one individual, albeit an individual as distinguished and well qualified as the National Statistician. I shall deal briefly with amendments Nos. 39 and 45. Amendment No. 39 would require the National Statistician to promote statistical planning and production across Departments. As we discussed in Committee, one of the Bill’s great strengths is the fact that the devolved Administrations have all decided to join in with the new arrangements. The Government recognise that consistent, UK-wide statistics are important, beneficial and desirable. The consistency will mean that statistics about the devolved countries can be combined to produce UK figures; it will mean that if there were different Administrations, we could compare their circumstances. As I made clear in Committee, some divergence is to be expected. That is a product of devolution—not just the recent devolution settlement but the different legal, political and administrative systems and policies that are in place in the four nations, many of which existed before devolution. It may therefore not be appropriate or desirable for statistics to be as consistent as possible. Amendment No. 45 would require the legislation to state that the National Statistician should be the Government’s chief adviser on statistics and ““provide professional leadership”” to all persons working on statistics in government. I have dealt with the status of the National Statistician and their important range of roles. I have already said that we intend the National Statistician, as now, to be the head of the government statistical service, providing professional leadership to people working on statistics in government. In the decentralised system that we have chosen to retain, it is inevitable that statisticians will continue to work in Government Departments. It is not appropriate to legislate within the civil service structure for lines of accountability between staff working in a Department and the National Statistician working in another Department. We do not do that with the government economic service, government scientific services or the government legal service. The question is not about professional status or authority but simply whether it is right or appropriate to legislate for lines of professional accountability across Departments.