RESOURCING OF NATIONAL STATISTICS

  During my evidence to the Sub-Committee, Mr Kidney asked (paragraph 175) where comparative information on the resourcing of statistics might be found. At the time I could not remember where I had seen the information, but I have now traced it to the ONS Business Plan, which I gather has now been supplied to the Sub-Committee by the Director of ONS.

QUALITY OF DATA—ANNUAL EARNINGS SURVEY

  Much of the coverage of the Sub-Committee's Inquiry has focused on the quality of data series, and the Annual Earning Survey in particular. We would query the figures for the public sector as far as local government is concerned. With revenue support grant settlements for recent years (until the current year) representing real terms reductions, pay awards in local government (leaving aside those determined nationally for teachers and fire fighters) have broadly been in line with inflation. Where the methodology tracks the pay of the same people, it will show growth based on the award of increments. However this ignores the effect of those leaving towards the higher end of a salary scale being replaced by those recruited at the bottom of the scale. Such a methodology therefore would overstate pay growth in local government.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT'S CONCERNS

  However local government would hope that the attention being given to the inquiries into the Annual Earnings Survey will not distract from the more important issues about the future of national statistics generally, and the organisational arrangements best able to achieve this.

  The key issues from the local government perspective which we hope will be addressed in the Sub-Committee's report are:

(1) Greater emphasis on small area statistics, perhaps with trade-offs on frequency to keep down costs (so that they would have statistical validity at the local level and therefore enable local authorities to be confident in targeting services better).

(2) Opportunities for formal input into the ONS and GSS Business Strategy (so that local as well as national policy needs are addressed in an integrated way).

(3) More uniform input into all the statistical series relevant to local government (so that the relative lack of involvement is brought up to that for the Census).

(4) Standards applied consistently across the ONS, GSS, and Next Steps and Audit and Inspection agencies (so that local authorities are not asked for slightly different statistics on the same thing—e.g., class sizes—by different arms of government, and that data series are of consistent standards across government).

(5) A clearer distinction drawn between basic statistics in the public domain, and value added products which can be charged for commercially (so that public debate is supported but that income can be generated).

(6) ONS be reconstituted as an arms-length body (Model C in the Green Paper) (this would enable it to form partnerships with others, including local government and the private sector, to widen and improve national statistics, and generate fresh sources of income and hold if not reduce the burden on taxation).

(7) The law on information and statistics (much of which is over 50 years' old) be [updated] and cover freedom of information, data protection, copyright, and tradeable information in an integrated and coherent way.

  We have set up a company—the Local Government Information House Ltd—to begin to manage local government's information rights in a modern business-like way, and now have two contracts with Ordnance Survey, which brings together local authorities and OS as the two major players in information about "place". We believe that there is a major opportunity to develop a similar approach with ONS to information about "people" if central government is willing to adopt such an approach as well.

20 November 1998