RSSeNEWS to be determined...

Well over 350 people packed a meeting organised by the Royal Statistical Society's Official Statistics Section and National Statistics Working Party, on 22 February 2010 to hear MPs from the three main UK political parties set out their policies relating to official statistics.

In his opening remarks Society President, David Hand, spoke of the regrettable lack of trust in official statistics. “The lack of trust does not  reflect the quality of the figures being produced,” he said. “Instead, it represents a combination of a number of things, including a lack of understanding of the complexities of official statistics; mistrust arising from the misuse of statistics, either deliberate or accidental; and a perceived difference between the ground truth as the public see things, and the overall published statistical summaries.”

He added that, “statistics are the mirror through which we view society.  The public need to have confidence that that mirror is not cracked. This is critically important as we approach a general election.  For the public to trust politicians, they must first trust the basis on which the politicians are making their assertions.  Last week I wrote to party leaders stressing this need for the use of statistics to be appropriate and accurate.”

First to speak was Labour MP and former minister, James Plaskitt. He said that there was a need to rebuild trust in the entire political system of which statistics was a particular part. He wanted an official statistical system that was comprehensive and robust, that was independent and that provided the public with a clear kitemark on statistical quality.

His view was that the 2007 Statistics and Registration Service Act had been a significant change, but that although necessary it was not sufficient. He described the roughly 1,300 National Statistics series produced in many different government departments as a statistical diaspora. There was a tension within the UK Statistics Authority between its scrutineer role and its publisher role, something he likened to being both scorer and umpire.

In particular he wanted to see all official statistics come under the Code of Practice, though he said he was relaxed about whether publication was independent. On pre-release access, he felt that the problem was a public perception that it allowed a political massaging. But his view was that ministers should have the chance to understand newly published statistics before being asked to comment on them, saying that what matters to the public is statistical veracity. He did feel that extending pre-release to chairs of parliamentary select committees would balance the extent of this access.

On the Census he felt that there was a strong case for it in delivering the fine-grained information needed for efficient spending of public money. He suggested that a post-Census report should be published, perhaps by the UK Statistics Authority, setting out how the data were  used and results applied, and what efficiencies were gained through it. This he felt, would help give the public confidence in its usefulness and would help determine what should happen in 2021.

Another former minister, Francis Maude MP, spoke for the Conservative Party. He opened his remarks saying that while the quality of statistics was desirable, he had doubts about the quantity, wondering whether too many statistics were collected.

Speaking of the UK Statistics Authority he said that he had great support for the way it was working. He noted that while an independent Authority was not necessarily comfortable for politicians it did impose discipline. He felt that it would be worth looking at giving it a greater remit.

He underlined the importance of transparency as a necessary discipline in politics and spoke of Conservative plans to set up an independent organisation to examine fiscal policy and to invigilate official projections of government budget and debt.

His view was that politicians should exercise control over the information that is collected and gave a view from his experience in government in the 1980s that the collection of business statistics at that time, for example, had been burdensome. He took a somewhat similar with the Census, and said he was concerned about its cost, and said that it should be asked just how valuable some questions are. He was concerned that response rates might diminish as the Census questionnaire grew bigger, felt that some of the questions were too intrusive and suggested that the reliability of the statistics produced could well be affected. Overall he felt there was a strong case for next year’s Census to be cut back.

He welcomed, however, the “Beyond 2011” project looking at other ways in which the information currently collected in the Census could be compiled which he thought could lead to more timely and cost-effective data.

Vince Cable MP spoke for the Liberal Democrats. He noted that he had been heavily involved in the passage of the Statistics and Registration Service Act, leading his party’s response in the House of Commons.

He set out some views that statistics could be a particularly sensitive issue when subjectivity was depended on in considering various measures. As examples he gave different counts related to unemployment, and the debate on switching from RPI to CPI as the main measure of inflation. He suggested that this might lead to “conspiracy theories” among the public.

He recognised that while politicians might misuse statistics, others could too where they might have strong motivations to do so. This and many other reasons meant there was a need for a system of unimpeachable integrity.

In considering the impact of the legislation he said that it had been an advance. Before its passage he said he had three particular concerns. On pre-release access he noted that it had been seriously out of line with international practice but said that there had been improvement since the legislation. He said there remained the distinction between official statistics generally and those which were National Statistics. His third concern had been about parliamentary accountability of the new Authority, which he felt had been addressed.

He noted that a particular question he had been asked to address by the meeting’s organiser and that was whether he supported ring-fencing the statistics budget which he explained he did not. He did not feel it was appropriate to ring-fence any area of government spending in considering the changes that would have to be made to public spending.

• As Francis Maude had to leave the meeting early due to other business, he was not available to respond to questions as part of the panel. He has agreed to respond to those put to the other panellists in correspondence. The responses to all will be reported once that has happened.