Present

Committee Members

Professor Paul Boyle (Chair)

Siobhan Carey (Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency) Chris Dibben (Independent member)

Andrew Garrett (Independent member) Emma Gordon (UK Research and Innovation) Sarah Henry (ONS)

Glyn Jones (Welsh Government)

Sarah Matthieson (Independent member) Neil McIvor (Department for Education)

Advisors

Peter Stokes (Research Services & Data Access, ONS) Andy Wall (Chief Security Officer, ONS)

Nikki Shearman (Head of Legal Services, ONS) Jason Riches (Legal Services, ONS)

Ross Young (Data Protection Officer, UK Statistics Authority)

UK Statistics Authority

Simon Whitworth Lily O’Flynn

Apologies

Tricia Dodd (Independent member) Kevin Fletcher (HMRC)

Roger Halliday (Scottish Government)

1.            Introductions

1.1 The Chair welcomed the members to the eighth meeting of the Research Accreditation

1.2 Members approved the minutes from the meeting in September 2019.

1.3 Simon Whitworth updated the meeting with progress on actions from previous All actions were completed. Peter Stokes confirmed to the Panel that the DEA is the default legal gateway that ONS will use to make de-identified data available to researchers.

2.            DEA Processor Accreditation Status Update

2.1 Andy Wall updated the Research Accreditation Panel on the status of the ongoing accreditation of It was reported that institutions in Scotland and Wales have delayed dates for security site visits and audits, hence causing a delay in assessing those institutions. Andy Wall updated the Panel that the revised dates for these assessments would be in early December.

2.2 Andy Wall confirmed that the operational accreditation function can accredit multiple processors simultaneously and remains committed to supporting parallel applications, but this was dependent on the potential processors providing their evidence that meet the essentials of the accreditation

3.            Appeals Process

3.1 Simon Whitworth updated the Research Accreditation Panel with a proposed appeal process for appeals against the standard procedures and processes of the The following comments were made by the Panel in the discussion that followed:

3.2 If the National Statistician, or their delegate, felt it was appropriate a subject matter expert should be included on the Appeals

3.3 Appeals Panel members should be able to appoint a delegate to act on their behalf on the Appeals

3.4 The Research Accreditation Panel agreed the appeals process subject to the Secretariat completing the above minor revisions. Once these additions had been made, the Secretariat was asked to publish the appeal process on the UK Statistics Authority

ACTION: The Secretariat to make the amendments suggested above and publish the appeals process on the UK Statistics Authority website once minor revisions have been implemented.

4.           Project Accreditation

4.1 Members of the Panel welcomed the way in which the project accreditation documentation had been compiled and The Panel asked that summary information could usefully be included on:

• information on the legal gateways used to access the data;
• whether the project is using a single dataset or multiple datasets and, when appropriate, which data is being linked;
• whether the project has been previously peer reviewed by an approvals panel; and
• the geography of the project (e.g. UK-wide, national, regional).

ACTION: The Secretariat to make the above additions to the project accreditation cover note for future meetings.

4.2 The Panel considered thirteen projects and were assured by Pete Stokes that in all cases the data suppliers approved of the use of their data for these The following seven projects were accredited. In the case of the first project, the project was accredited subject to the accreditation of the secure environment of ADR Scotland as an accredited DEA processor.

• Understanding the health and employment needs of the Scottish working age population
• Analysis of victimisation data from the Crime Survey for England and Wales
• Thriving Places index – indicators of wellbeing at local authority level
• Functional specialisation and their linkages between London and UK cities
• Modelling Return on Investment at the firm level
• The impact of the immigration white paper on the NI economy
• TechNation programme evaluation

4          Any other business

4.1  The date of the next meeting is the 19 November.