Senior figures at the Royal Statistics Society and other organisations have written to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee to warn of the dangers of “watering down the independence of the ONS in order to address questions about accountability”.
In a joint letter, leaders at RSS, Sense about Science, the Royal Economic Society, and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research have set out shared concerns about the need to maintain and strengthen the independence of the UK’s statistical system.
The letter, sent on 11 September but made public today, picks out comments from PACAC chair Simon Hoare during sessions for the committee’s ongoing inquiry into the work of the UK Statistics Authority, and highlights the importance of ensuring that official statistics are produced free from political influence and that public trust in data is protected.
It points to a session with former national statistician Prof Sir Ian Diamond on 9 September where Hoare queried whether it would be beneficial if the national statistician had a single person – either the cabinet secretary or a minister such as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – to whom they were directly accountable.
The letter also notes comments from Hoare in a session with UKSA chair Sir Robert Chote, interim national statistician Emma Rourke, and Office for Statistics Regulation head Ed Humpherson on 1 July, that “quite a lot of the problems” found by the Robert Devereux review into the ONS “seem to suggest…an organisation which is independent of government but dependent upon the mindset of the leadership, which can also make it unaccountable to the court of public opinion”.
It also points to a second session with the trio on 8 July where Hoare said “tensions created by independence of operation” had contributed to “a laissez-faire attitude towards accountability”.
The authors of the letter – RSS president Professor Sir John Aston; SAS director Tracey Brown; RES Professor Imran Rasul; and NIESR director David Aikman – said Hoare seemed to be suggesting that organisation's independence may have led to a lack of accountability.
“It is clearly right to ask questions about an environment that was slow to respond to the declining quality of key statistics, and reasonable to question the existing mechanism for accountability,” they said. “However, the independence of the statistical system is a vitally important principle – and it is important that this is protected.”
The letter notes that an independent statistical system is recognised internationally as a core principle of good governance, with the UN Principles of Official Statistics stating that official data should serve all users equally. It urges PACAC to consider ways of improving accountability without undermining this independence.
“We, collectively, would be very wary of watering down the independence of the ONS in order to address questions about accountability – including by making the leadership of the ONS accountable to a minister,” the letter warns.
“First, it is not clear to us that the current challenges were a direct result of the ONS’s independence – as identified by Ed Humpherson, it appeared that a greater problem was a culture of defensiveness and being slow to respond to external challenge. Second, there are ways to strengthen accountability without weakening independence – to the board and to parliament – that should be explored.”
The letter suggests PACAC should recommend measures that improve the functioning and culture of ONS “without resorting to sacrificing that independence for political control”. It says PACAC and parliament “successfully do so with other independent statutory bodies and we would be keen for PACAC to explore a greater role for itself going forward”.
The letter adds: “It is important that the statistical system as a whole is accountable to parliament and, by extension, the public, and we are keen to speak with you further about how we can support your committee in ensuring that.”
A PACAC spokesperson said the committee would consider the views in the letter as part of its ongoing inquiry into the work of the UKSA.