OFFICE FOR NATIONAL STATISTICS

The 'Office for National Statistics' (ONS) is the United Kingdom government executive agency charged with the collection and publication of statistics related to the economy, population and society of the United Kingdom at national and local levels. For historical reasons, it incorporates the General Register Office so is also responsible for the registration of births, deaths and marriages in England and Wales.
The ONS was formed on 1 April 1996 by the merger of the Central Statistical Office (CSO) and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS).^[1]

Contents

Office Locations

Heads of the Office: National Statistician

Independence

Work of the ONS

The Blue Book

Education of Statisticians

Criticism of the ONS

See also

External links

References

Office Locations

The ONS has a head office in the city of Newport, South Wales, and other offices in Pimlico in London, Titchfield in Hampshire and SouthportOffice for National Statistics: location maps, www.statistics.gov.uk, retrieved 10 June 2007.. In addition, there is the Family Records Centre in IslingtonOffice for National Statistics: location maps, www.statistics.gov.uk, retrieved 10 June 2007., London, where censuses over 100 years old, electoral registers and indexes to the registers of births, deaths and marriages in England and Wales may be consulted, and copies of census entries and certificates can be purchased.
The London office was the head office until April 2006 when the corporate headquarters was moved to Newport^[2] following the Lyons Review^[3] on public sector relocation. Initially, the London office was in three buildings but due to reductions, most London staff are now in 1 Drummond Gate. The main London office is expected to close by April 2010 by which time the ONS policy is for its statistical activities to be concentrated in Titchfield and Newport ^[4]. The ONS asserts that recruitment and training of quality staff in South Wales, where data collection and analysis already takes place, will ensure that there is no risk to the quality of its services and that it is managing the risks associated with the changes which it is implementing in a planned and gradual way^[5]. However the plan to discontinue all remaining statistical activity in London is proving controversial amid claims that the shift of functions from London and the impending closure of the London office could have serious implications for the future of certain particular sets of statistics. These include health statistics, National Accounts, Retail and Consumer Prices and Labour Market Statistics. These risks derive from the fact that few of the experienced staff working in these highly technical areas are expected to be willing to relocate to Newport, resulting in a substantial loss of expertise and a consequent threat to the continued quality of the statistics^[6]. In a submission to the Parliamentary Treasury Sub Committee, the Bank of England too has expressed concern over the relocation of the ONS to Newport, saying, that "the relocation programme poses serious risks to the maintenance of the quality of macroeconomic data. If substantial numbers of ONS staff are unwilling to relocate, the loss of skilled individuals could have a severe impact on a range of statistics."^[7][8]. The director of ONS has vigorously defended ONS implementation of government policy on civil service relocation and the decision to concentrate staff in the three locations outside London^[9].

Heads of the Office: National Statistician

Directors are ''de facto'' Permanent Secretaries but do not use that title. As the ONS incorporates the OPCS, the Director is also the Registrar General for England and Wales. In addition, he or she is ''ex officio'' the Head of the Government Statistical Service. The first Director of ONS was Professor Tim Holt. Subsequent Directors have had an additional title, the National Statistician. The second Director was Len Cook. He was succeeded by Karen Dunnell on 1 September 2005^[10].

Independence

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer (now Prime Minister), announced on 28 November 2005^[11] that the government intended to publish plans in early 2006 to legislate to render the ONS and the statistics it generates independent of government, on a model based on the acclaimed independence of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England^[12]. Such independence was sought by the Royal Statistical Society^[13] and the Statistics Commission^[14]. It had become the policy of the Liberal Democrats^[15] and Conservatives^[16]. It was originally a 1997 Labour manifesto commitment^[17].
It is envisaged that the National Statistician should be directly accountable to Parliament through a more widely-constituted independent governing Statistics Board^[18]. It has now been confirmed that the new ONS will be a non ministerial government department, so that the staff, including the Director, will remain as civil servants but without being under direct ministerial control^[19].
The National Statistician, Karen Dunnell, stated that legislation would help improve public trust in official statistics^[20] although the ONS already acts independently according to its own published guidelines, the National Statistics Code of Practice^[21], which sets out the key principles and standards that official statisticians, including those in other parts of the government statistical service, are expected to follow and uphold.
The details of the plans for independence were considered in Parliament during the 2006/2007 session, and resulted in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007^[22]. On 17 July 2007, Sir Michael Scholar was nominated by the government to be the 3 day-a-week non-executive chairman of the new Statistics Board which, to re-establish faith in the integrity of government statistics, will take on statutory responsibility for oversight of UK statistics in April 2008. The board will oversee the Office for National Statistics, following the "independence" which it will obtain from ministers after the passage of the Bill. It will also have a duty to assess all UK government statistics. Following Gordon Brown's announcement of new constitutional arrangements for public appointments, Sir Michael also became, on 18 July, the first such nominee to appear for vetting before the House of Commons Treasury Committee and to have his nomination subject to confirmation by the House^[23].

Work of the ONS

Where data is broken down by geographical area, this is usually done by the areas defined in the ONS geographical coding system.
The principal areas of data collection are:

★ Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry

★ Commerce, Energy and Industry

★ Crime and Justice

★ Economy

★ Education and Training

★ Health and Care (Among numerous regular surveys, such as the General Household survey, the Labour Force Survey and the census that takes place every 10 years, ONS runs the England and Wales Longitudinal Survey, which monitors the health, address changes and fertility of a 1% sample of the population of England and Wales over time for statistical purposes).

★ Labour Market

★ Natural and Built Environment

★ Population and Migration

★ Public Sector and Other

★ Social and Welfare

★ Transport, Travel and Tourism
Statisticians are also employed by many other Government departments and agencies, and these statisticians often collect and publish data. For example, data on Agriculture, Fishing and Forestry come primarily from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Along with economic data on which the Treasury and Bank of England rely for decision-making, many of the statistics that receive widespread media attention are issued by the Home Office, the Department of Health, and the Department for Education and Skills.
The statistical work of the ONS has, since June 2000, been scrutinized by the Statistics Commission, an independent body with its own chairman and small staff.

The Blue Book

Annually, the Office for National Statistics publish their findings in the so-called ''Blue Book''. It contains the estimates of the domestic and national product, income and expenditure of the United Kingdom, and is available as hardcopy, as well as a web version.^[24]

Education of Statisticians

The Office for National Statistics collaborates with the University of Southampton in the teaching of a MSc in Official Statistics, the programme has been in running since 2003.^[25]

Criticism of the ONS

Len Cook, when National Statistician, described himself as the country's most abused civil servant^[26]. Occasional errors and revisions accounts for some past criticism while the allocation of Private Finance Initiative expenditure (albeit following OECD and international statistical guidelines according to who carries the risk) has attracted political attention.
Many of the most controversial topics for statistics issued by government do not come from ONS though they are expected to meet ''National Statistics'' standards. Crime statistics and other data (e.g. health and education) that could be deemed to assess the effectiveness of government policies often attract media scepticism. The compulsory nature of the census (unlike most other surveys by academics and market researchers) differentiates ONS from other data collectors (apart from the Inland Revenue). The Office for National Statistics won the 2004 Big Brother Award for the "Most Heinous Government Organisation" from the campaigning organisation Privacy International for its Citizen Information Project. The project is one of several that lead the Government's own Information Commissioner to warn that there is a danger of the country "sleepwalking" into a surveillance society^[27].

See also

★ General Register Office

★ Census 2001

★ UK topics

★ Departments of the United Kingdom Government

★ Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency

External links

★ Office for National Statistics website

★ Statistics and Registration Service Bill, Treasury website.

★ Statistics and Registration Service Bill, Parliament website.

★ Palgrave Macmillan, official publisher for the Office for National Statistics

References

1. John Pullinger (1997). ''"The Creation of the Office for National Statistics"'', ''International Statistical Review'', Vol. 65, No. 3, pp. 291-308.
2. ''"Newport to be ONS headquarters"'', National Statistics news release, 20 September 2004, retrieved 9 June 2007.
3. ''"The Lyons Review: Independent Review of public sector relocation"'', HM Treasury website.
4. ''"ONS set to close down London HQ"'', news report from the BBC website.
5. ''"Stats staff 'quitting' over move"'', news report from the BBC website, 14 May 2007.
6. Debate on the Statistics and Registration Service Bill in the House of Lords, 24 April 2007, Hansard, Column 597.
7. ''"Bank of England comments on recent ONS performance"'', a submission made by the Bank of England to the Treasury Sub-Committee inquiry into progress on the efficiency programme in the Chancellor's departments, May 2007.
8. ''"Bank warns on ONS move to Wales"'', news report from the BBC website, 10 May 2007.
9. ''"Statistics officers get the measure of relocation"'', article by Karen Dunnell, Financial Times, 4 June 2007, retrieved 7 June 2007.
10. ''"National Statistician - Director Office for National Statistics"'', 10 Downing Street press notice, 4 August 2005, retrieved 9 June 2007.
11. Statement to the House of Commons on the review of the Framework for National Statistics, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 28 November 2005.
12. Budget Statement made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 22 March 2006
13. ''"A Vision for National Statistics"'', Royal Statistical Society.
14. ''"Legislation to build trust in statistics"'', a report by the Statistics Commission.
15. Liberal Democrats Manifesto General Election 2005.
16. ''"Let Parliament appoint new UK statistics chief"'', press release from Conservative Party website.
17. Labour Party Manifesto, General Election 1997, Keele University website.
18. ''"Statistics And Registration Service Bill"'', House of Commons Explanatory Note to the Bill, para. 7-8. Retrieved 10 June 2007.
19. ''"Statistics And Registration Service Bill"'', House of Commons Explanatory Note to the Bill, para. 42. Retrieved 10 June 2007.
20. ''"National Statistician welcomes Statistics and Registration Service Bill"'', news release from ONS website.
21. ''"National Statistics Code of Practice"'', ONS website
22. ''"Statistics and Registration Service Bill"'', progress of the Bill through the UK Parliament from Parliament website.
23. ''"Whitehall veteran in frame for statistics chief post"'', Financial Times, 18 July 2007.
24. United Kingdom National Accounts - The Blue Book 2006
25. MSc in Official Statistics, University of Southampton.
26. Minutes of evidence given before the Select Committee on Treasury, 30 October 2002.
27. ''"Beware rise of Big Brother state, warns data watchdog"'', Times Online, 16 August 2004.