Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I am grateful for the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, has advanced the cause of her amendments and I am grateful also to all other noble Lords who have contributed to this debate—and to the noble Lord, Lord Newby, for his amendments. I am not going to accept any of the amendments this evening, but this has been a useful debate in clarifying some of the issues and I wish to say a little more about that in due course. First, let me explain why I cannot accept the bulk of the amendments. The Bill creates a new, independent Statistics Board, reflecting the Government’s commitment to two key principles: first, where appropriate, devolving Ministerial power in statute to credible independent institutions with a clear remit set by government and Parliament and, secondly, leadership by a board, which means sharing accountability across a group of individuals with a range of expertise, rather than vesting all authority in one individual. Given the unique features of the UK’s strongly supported decentralised system of statistical production, the Government have concluded that it would be best to establish a single oversight board to scrutinise the statistical system, and to provide the top governance layer in an independent ONS, reflecting the key goals to put statistical production and scrutiny on an independent footing. One of the key reasons for that is to avoid creating competing, independent centres of ““statistical expertise”” that might undermine confidence in the system. In the Government’s chosen model, the board is able to draw on the professional advice of the independent statutory National Statistician, rather than requiring its own separate independent professional adviser. As Ministers have effectively been removed from the accountability structure for ONS, it is absolutely fundamental to replace that governance role, and a new statutory board will undertake the role that Ministers currently undertake. Within that single structure, the Government have included mechanisms to ensure clear delineation of production and scrutiny responsibilities. However, I recognise that there is uncertainty in parts of the Chamber on how clear we have been on these matters. That is why this debate, to which I will respond, has advanced the cause further. The National Statistician is required to establish an executive office of the board, to which she must appoint the other executive board members and can appoint other staff. It is through that office that we expect the executive activity of statistical production to be undertaken on a day-to-day basis, just as the ONS does now. Some have suggested that the legislation involves some kind of downgrading of the post of National Statistician. We regard that post as being extremely important and high status. Unlike at present, the post will be a statutory, Crown appointment and key roles are designated within our proposals. The National Statistician is the board’s chief professional adviser, she is the chief executive of the board, she is head of the executive office responsible for establishing, managing and leading that office and its staff, and although this is not in the legislation, we intend that she will be the head of the Government Statistical Service. The assessment function will be operationally independent of statistical production in the executive office. A statutory post holder, the head of assessment, reporting directly to the board, will lead the assessment function and all the staff working on assessment. The head of assessment cannot work on statistical production and will not be part ofthe executive office. We are seeking to establishthat structure within the Bill and I recognise that doubts have been expressed about aspects of that structure. I turn, first, to the amendments spoken to bythe noble Lord, Lord Newby, which would require the National Statistician to operate independently of the board but with scrutiny of the National Statistician provided by the board. I understand some of the thinking behind this proposal but I consider that it would confuse the governance model and leave blurred lines of accountability. For example, under Amendment No. 30, the National Statistician would be employed by the board but she would act independently of it and therefore not be accountable to it. The Government believe that it is right that the board provides a top layer of governance for the statistics office—currently the ONS—replacing the role that Ministers currently undertake where they are not involved in day-to-day operations but provide strategic oversight and help to set direction. The majority non-executive board will provide support for, and exercise a challenge function to, the National Statistician and her executive team in the usual role played by non-executive boards. We expect the board to feed into and sign-off long-term strategic documents, such as high-level business plans for statistical production, as well as take a key role in issues such as high-level risk management. As I said earlier, the National Statistician’s role is clear and her status is assured in the Bill. As I indicated, in addition to the functions that I identified, the Government also intend the National Statistician to be the head of the Government Statistical Service, leading the professional development of staff across government and having responsibility for maintaining staff development functions to ensure the availability of skilled, professional statisticians across government. I believe that that is clear and that AmendmentsNos. 30, 40 and 47 muddy the waters. The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, spoke to a large group of similar amendments, which all seek to reassign responsibilities in the Bill from the board to the National Statistician. As I have already said, we expect the National Statistician to undertake the largely executive functions on the board’s behalf through the executive office that she will be obliged to establish. Under Clause 29(2), the National Statistician may exercise all the board’s functions, with a couple of limited exceptions, related to that separate assessment function. There is also another lock to assure the National Statistician’s rightful and clear role as adviser to the board on all statistical matters. The board is required to publish and report to Parliament, including the reasons why it overrules the National Statistician’s advice on technical issues, if indeed it does so. That would be a significant action by the board and would require publicity. The board is the legal entity which will be statutorily responsible for the exercise of the functions established in the Bill. This provides a governance structure that allows corporate oversight of executive and assessment functions, while maintaining a single centre of expertise for statistics. As has been reiterated this evening and in other quarters—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, referred to it—there has been some confusion about the unitary model adopted in the Bill. I do not accept that. We are clear about the model that we are following. One corporate legal entity has statutory responsibility for discharging all the statutory functions conferred by the Bill, acting through a professional executive, except in relation to certain reserved functions; namely questions of assessment. That is a fairly familiar set-up for governance arrangements throughout government and the wider public sector, and we think it is an appropriate model for the board. That is why I express difficulty in accepting the amendments, although I recognise that some of them are probing and that they intend to ensure that we are clear about these functions. In speaking to Amendment No. 95, the noble Lord, Lord Newby, suggested that there was some anomaly in the drafting. However, the use of the word ““itself”” is to make it clear that this clause, unlike the preceding ones, is about statistics which the board ultimately produces, rather than the statistics that other organisations, such as government departments, produce and which the board monitors. We have already discussed why the Government are committed to the principle that the board should be ultimately responsible for statistical production, although on a day-to-day basis the National Statistician will run the organisation responsible for that delivery. So, in an attempt to preserve the clarity of this clause, I hope that the noble Lord will recognise that his amendment would cause some degree of confusion. Amendments Nos. 121 to 124 would require the National Statistician, as well as the board, to exercise their functions efficiently under the terms set out in Clause 26. The board has ultimate responsibility for the functions established in the Bill and it has ultimate responsibility for the proper discharge of those functions, even if delegated to the National Statistician. Therefore, only the board can properly be ultimately and legally responsible—the point that we are considering in the Bill—for the efficient exercise of those functions, although we would of course expect the National Statistician to play a full part in operating efficiently as a member of the board and as the board’s chief executive. Amendment No. 150 seeks to make the National Statistician chief executive of the executive office, rather than the board’s chief executive. We do not regard this as a necessary or helpful change. The board, as a corporate body, needs a chief executive. Parliament will expect a single person to be accountable for the activities of the board as accounting officer. In response to a question from the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I indicated that that accounting officer would be the National Statistician. The chief executive need not be operationally involved in every aspect of the board’s activities to discharge that responsibility, and the Bill ensures that that is the case. Finally, Amendments Nos. 154, 155 and 156 seek to alter the governance arrangements that we have established and would prohibit the board from directing the National Statistician and staff of the executive office on the exercise of executive functions. Again, I simply repeat what I have said before: we have chosen what we believe to be the right governance structure in this respect. I said ““finally”” but I have overlooked one amendment. Amendment No. 157 seeks to alter the name of the executive office, making it no longer ““an executive office of the Board”” but just ““an executive office””. I cannot agree with that. The executive office that the National Statistician is to establish will ultimately be under the board’s direction, and consequently it is appropriate to describe it as such in the Bill. I recognise that all noble Lords have been constructive in this debate. I also recognise that anxieties have been expressed and that the amendments give vent to those anxieties. I shall not accept the amendments this evening and I do not want noble Lords to press them, but I agree with the Committee that clarity about the roles is extremely important. If these anxieties are expressed in the Committee, it is incumbent on the Government to take further steps to clarify the roles—particularly that of the National Statistician—within the structure as set out in the Bill. I undertake to dwell on the contributions concerning this important area and to reflect on previous amendments which have given clear verse to some of these problems. I undertake that on Report I shall attempt to satisfy noble Lords’ anxieties, possibly more fully than I have been able to do this evening.