Statistics and Registration Service Bill

moved AmendmentNo. 124A: 124A: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause— ““Location (1) The Board may locate its statistical activities in any place within the United Kingdom which it thinks necessary or expedient for the exercise of its functions. (2) In choosing a location or locations under subsection (1) the Board must take into account the need to— (a) recruit and retain suitably skilled and experienced employees; (b) maintain effective contacts with users of statistics, in particular within central government; and (c) maintain the influence of official statistics on policy.”” The noble Lord said: The Government should be able to accept Amendment No. 124A. First, it would affirm that the board may locate its statistical activities in any place in the UK if it thinks it necessary or expedient for the exercise of its functions. I affirm the importance of spreading public services, including Civil Service work, around Britain, and I have been involved in a good number of such exercises. However, a certain finesse is needed where the function is by its nature a central Whitehall function; hence the three factors in the amendment which we say the board must take into account: first, the need to recruit and retain suitably skilled and experienced employees; secondly, the need to maintain effective contacts with users of statistics, particularly in central government; and, thirdly, the need to maintain the influence of official statistics on policy. In making the case, I am relying substantially on a briefing from the Association of First Division Civil Servants—the FDA—which is the union for senior civil servants. It is a TUC affiliate, so I am told that I should declare an interest in that FDA members also help to pay my pension. The central issue raised by the amendment relates to the location of the ONS and whether the board will have a coherent job of work to do. If the determination of the location of ONS staff is excluded—if, for example, the board is precluded from deciding that the national accounts section must be at the heart of Whitehall—I fear that the standing and reputation of the board will be negligible from the start. An ONS-commissioned survey of 2006 on the business case for ONS relocation from 2008 onwards states on page 7: "““Looking beyond March 2008 the Government’s plans to convert the statistical side of ONS to become a non ministerial department reporting to an independent governing board … These organisational changes will have little or no impact on the ONS relocation programme … however any decision taken after the conversion will be the responsibility of the independent governing board””." That raises two important questions: one about reversibility; the other about responsibility. The survey also states: "““There is some reluctance on behalf of the National Accounts Group and the Methodologists to embrace the proposed change to re-locate outside of London and they hold strong views on the likely risks to the business if this change is adopted. Their concerns are mainly around the ability to retain existing staff and recruit new, suitably qualified and experienced staff outside of the London area. This may have an impact on the quality of statistical output in relationships with key customers and stakeholders””." I submit that it must be part of the board’s scope to conclude, if it so wishes, that the current move to take all ONS activities out of London, mainly to Newport, has caused a loss of morale and efficiency. The survey’s figures on senior civil servants are quite astounding—I shall give them in a moment. All colleagues who have taken part in these debates will have seen the FDA’s evidence to the Treasury Select Committee to which I am referring. The FDA points out that it is not simply making a trade union point, by any manner of means; it is expressing deep dismay at the impact on professional standards. It points out that no other country in Europe, with the exception of Germany, which has a highly federal structure, has a significant national statistical office presence in its capital city. Moreover, the demotion of ONS is not just from the outskirts of London, but from what we have always known as the Treasury building just across the road. We all know that in whatever walk of life we come from, access to and location close to the highest level correlates with the degree to which our function is taken seriously. If, in effect, none of the functions of the staff of the ONS is located in Whitehall, it looks a bit like a circus animal. The ONS will have a small presence here just to serve the board, with everyone else somewhere else. The other point made is that the Newport labour market is not going to produce the specialist skills required to draw up, for example, the national accounts. The FDA concludes as follows: "““The FDA believes that the ONS is at crisis point. The cumulative impact of the need to deliver efficiency savings, the ""requirement to locate many key areas of work away from London and poor management of people and processes is putting the future delivery of the ONS’s outputs at risk””." I shall mention two of the survey results. Only 11 per cent of ONS senior civil servants think that the organisation is well managed, which is 40 percentage points lower than for the Civil Service as a whole. The second result is that 11 per cent of ONS senior civil servants think change is well managed in the organisation, which is 22 percentage points lower than for the Civil Service overall. I have some sympathy with an observation that could be made: this is most unfair on the senior managers of the ONS. I think it is most unfair, but I have quoted the facts. It is most unfair that they are the people carrying the can in these circumstances—we have all been there and got the T-shirt—and have to take all the opprobrium of such a relocation. I want to put on the record my personal thanks to the director of ONS for her courtesy and ready agreement to arrange for a senior colleague from Newport to come to the House of Lords and discuss with me over a cup of tea some factual questions concerning statistics on income distribution and how the £30 billion or £40 billion paid out in City bonuses fit into the published data based on averages for all employment pay increases widely quoted in inflation analyses, or excluded as the case may be. This is against a background where the board, if it is to have any authority, needs to have the whip hand over the Treasury on the publication of statistics on things like income distribution, not the other way around. Is that sort of signal being sent at this point in time? The answer to that question, in the vernacular, is ““You must be joking””. The ONS seems to have been set efficiency targets by Gershon, on top of Lyons, so hence the relocation targets. But I have to say that if anyone were to define cost cutting as synonymous with efficiency, we would call it a caricature. To recapitulate: first, after these changes, will there continue to be a significant London presence? I think the answer is no. Some 700 ONS staff are still here at the moment, but they will virtually disappear. Secondly, will it be possible to get staff with the specialist skills needed if London is closed down?The answer, I submit, is no. Thirdly, will there be a significant loss of experience through people resigning? The answer to that is yes. Fourthly, was there or is there still room for a compromise, such as keeping national accounts in London? That was rejected out of hand, so everybody will go. I do not see why that proposition has to be rejected out of hand. My noble friend should be able to find a way to show ONS staff some light at the end of the tunnel—and I do not mean just the light at the end of the Severn Tunnel on the Great Western Railway. The location changes must not be set in concrete before the board gets to work. An assurance is needed that if—I believe when—the board concludes that the comprehensive nature of the relocation has gone over the top and that it is damaging the quality of national statistics, the board will be able to make the necessary adjustments. So the changes cannot be set in concrete and some may need to be reversed, as the Irish found—it is mentioned in the FDA memorandum— when they initially moved all their parallel functions from Dublin to Cork. I shall consider carefully what the Minister has to say. I beg to move.