Under the provisions of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, the UK Statistics Authority has a statutory responsibility to assess whether the Code of Practice has been complied with in relation to any official statistics, subject to a request from an appropriate authority (as defined in the Act). Where the Authority determines that the Code has been complied with it will designate the statistics as “National Statistics”, but otherwise not. These arrangements also apply to statistics already designated as National Statistics which will all be re-assessed.
In fulfilling its statutory remit, the Authority will use the assessment process, in line with the Code of Practice, to identify steps that could be taken to improve the service to users of the statistics, and will report accordingly. Such assessment will support the Authority’s overall objective, which is to promote and safeguard the production and publication of official statistics that serve the public good.
The Authority also has a statutory responsibility to prepare and publish a programme for the assessment of statistics. The Authority’s consultation on a new Code of Practice for Official Statistics closed recently, and the Code is likely to be published in January 2009. The Authority has asked its Monitoring and Assessment Team to assess the following against the Code by the end of June 2009. This is an initial programme of assessments – the sequence and timing will be kept under review, and it is possible that changes will be made to the programme.
- Migration Statistics (Office for National Statistics)
- Road Freight Statistics (Department for Transport)
- Road Casualty Statistics (Department for Transport)
- Emissions of carbon dioxide for local authority areas (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
- Prison Population Projections (Ministry of Justice)
- Statistics on International Development (Department for International Development)
- Enrolments at Schools and in Funded Pre-School Education in Northern Ireland
- Recorded Crime in Scotland
- Children looked after by local authorities (separate publications for each of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland)
- Statistics from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse)
Information from this initial tranche of activity will help inform the publication, by spring 2009, of an Assessment Work Programme for 2009-10.
For more information regarding the subject of this Press Release please contact: 07990 795693, 07971 186710 or 07786 892263.