Members present

• Penny Young (Chair)
• Dr. Jacob Abboud
• Peter Barron
• Ed Humpherson
• Professor Dame Carol Propper
• Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter
• Professor Mairi Spowage
• Darren Tierney
• Dr. Sarah Walsh

Other attendees

• June Bowman
• Mary Gregory
• Sarah Moore
• Heather Bovill (for item 8)
• Alex Lambert (for item 8)
• Patrick Scott (for item 9)
• Simon Sandford-Taylor (for item 9)
• Phil Wales (for item 8)

Secretariat

• Sally Jones
• Tom Marsh

Apologies

• James Benford
• Tom Taylor

1. Apologies

1. Apologies were noted from James Benford and Tom Taylor.

2. Declarations of Interest

1. There were no new declarations of interest.

3. Minutes and matters arising from previous meetings

1. The minutes of the previous meeting held on 30 April were agreed.

4. Report from the Authority Chair [SA(26)31]

1. The Chair reported on her activities since the Board last met. The recruitment process for the National Statistician was nearing completion. The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) report on the work of the Authority was expected in the coming months. Preparations were underway for the Interim Chair’s inaugural annual reception scheduled on 2 July.
2. The Chair paid warm tribute to Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter as this was his last meeting. Sir David had been a highly valued member of the Board bringing his extensive expertise to the work of the Authority and supporting teams across the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), providing a high level of support in many areas.

5. Report from the Permanent Secretary [SA(26)32]

1. Darren Tierney provided the Board with an overview of activity and issues since the last meeting highlighting the following:
   1. development of the Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26 with thanks noted to Tom Taylor and the finance team on progress to date;
   2. publication of ONS’s Business Plan on 20 May. Darren Tierney alongside Sarah Jennings held a call with all colleagues to reinforce the messaging on the outcomes and approach ONS is now taking to sequencing work and maximising delivery confidence for key areas of priority as set out in the plan: Census 2031, Statistical Business Register (SBR), Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) and Content and Website Transformation. A full review would be undertaken at the end of quarter one to reassess the financial risk;
   3. the work by the finance team in discussion with HM Treasury colleagues regarding the census ringfence;
   4. the results of the first quarterly organisation wide pulse survey with an increase of three percentage points on overall Employee Engagement Index – 63 per cent, and an increase across all questions asked;
   5. development of the long-term People Plan;
   6. the appointment of Luke Ashton as Director General for Digital, Data and Technology with a start date to be confirmed;
   7. publication on 21 May of UK long-term international migration estimates, up to year ending June 2025;
   8. the publication by the Equality and Human Rights Commission on its Code of Practice for services, public functions and associations following the Supreme Court ruling in the For Women Scotland case. ONS were reviewing the guidance and any potential implications; and
   9. the impact of updated data for TLFS Core on the response target and actions implemented in April to address the shortfall.
2. Members discussed the update and noted the improved reporting on internal audit actions; the positive results of the first pulse survey; and the progress made on the content and website transformation. It was acknowledged that the ONS strategy scheduled for Board discussion in June, would bring together the work previously undertaken including ONS’s Mission and Leadership Statement. In the longer term, further work would be needed to consider some of the longer term strategic issues for ONS including their responsibilities as a National Statistics Institute, and key decisions on direction as the work progresses on ONS’s digital strategy.
3. Members had welcomed the opportunity to meet several of Kate Davies’ teams as part of the Board’s visit to the Newport office in March, which provided the opportunity to understand the significant challenges and successes around aspects of legacy transformation. Following a ten week review of the SBR, changes had been made on a new model for the Senior Responsible Owner, including being accountable for digital resource. Additionally, given the profile of SBR users which has shown that a large proportion are using only one aspect of it, new SBR functionality could be made available to this group of users relatively quickly. It was noted that there were other complex systems that would require longer term plans to transition off, which were not yet in place. Progress on legacy issues was also being addressed through the ongoing work on the TLFS and Economic Statistics Plan.
4. The Board noted the report and agreed that a session would be scheduled for NEDs on the work being led by Pete Benton on data linkage, machine learning and AI, and further information would be provided on the social survey response rates.

6. Report from the National Statistician’s Office [SA(26)33]

1. Lucinda Eggleton provided an update on activities across the National Statistician’s Office (NSO) highlighting the positive progress and collaborative working by the GSS theme leads and GSS Heads of Profession on progress against the UK Statistics Assembly recommendations.
2. The Board heard that the first steering group meeting for the GSS Leadership Development Programme was scheduled on 29 May. Analysis in Government Month had been successful and would continue throughout the remainder of May. The Analysis Unit had delivered a number of sessions on the work they had conducted on the TLFS non-response bias. The GSS Harmonisation Team had published an update on the Analysis Function website that morning (21 May) on the sex harmonised standard.
3. Members discussed the update and highlighted the need for more precision on the timeline on responses to the UK Statistics Assembly recommendations to include clear dates and action owners. An update on this was scheduled for the Board meeting in June.
4. The Chair noted thanks to Lucinda Eggleton for her work as Director of the National Statistician’s Office, particularly in the absence of a National Statistician. Lucinda would be leaving ONS for a new position in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

7. Report from the Director General for Regulation [SA(26)34]

1. Ed Humpherson updated the Board on the work by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) since the last meeting.
2. OSR had published its compliance review of ONS national and subnational 2024 mid-year population estimates for England and Wales. OSR were planning on publishing something in recognition of ONS’s improvement of population and migrations statistics. A statement had been published on statistics on the Crime Survey for England and Wales following public discussion about crime rates in England and Wales.
3. Ed Humpherson had chaired a session at the recent Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence conference. The Royal Society had published a report on public engagement and communication of science which recommended a code of practice for scientists building on models such as OSR’s Code of Practice for Statistics.
4. Members discussed the update. It was clarified that OSR were developing an approach to assessment of official statistics which had not been reviewed for some time, including the introduction an automated TQV checklist.

8. Transformed Labour Force Survey [SA(26)35]

1. Alex Lambert and Phil Wales introduced a joint update from ONS and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA). The paper focused on the dependencies between the TLFS Programme and NISRA’s Labour Market Survey (LMS) and how they were working together to ensure continued delivery of UK data.
2. The Chair had visited the NIRSA recently, which had included a deep dive on the LMS and the system wide complexities of UK wide labour market data.
3. The Board heard that in Northern Ireland the transformed Labour Force Survey is known as the Labour Market Survey (LMS), which had been introduced into the field in October 2023. NISRA were undertaking detailed analytical work and peer review across all key operational and statistical processes to ensure the emerging data was fit for purpose. This included a linking study to examine non-response bias. Work was ongoing to develop measures of success criteria for the new survey, which would be published over the summer and would help inform NISRA’s transition timeline.
4. It was noted that currently the labour market information for Northern Ireland was collected through the Labour Force Survey using the same questionnaire as the rest of the UK. In future, NI data would be collected through NISRA’s LMS, while GB data would be collected through ONS’s TLFS. The continued production of UK statistics using LFS and the success of TLFS were dependent on satisfactory integration of the Northern Ireland data collected by NISRA.
5. Members discussed the dependencies between NISRA’s LMS and ONS’s TLFS to the continued production of high-quality and timely UK labour market statistics. The following points were made in discussion:
   1. the need to understand the coherence of questions between NISRA’s LMS and ONS’s TLFS and the reasons for any differences to ensure confidence in the data that would inform UK wide data indicators;
   2. the timeline for NISRA’s transition to LMS and the considerations as to whether it makes sense for ONS and NISRA to transition at the same time. At this point NISRA had not yet agreed a transition date, to allow enough time to make an assessment and understand the differences between the LMS compared to the LFS and HMRC data;
   3. the role of OSR which would include reviews of both the LMS and TLFS, noting the importance of clear criteria for both; and
   4. the impact of the strengthened dependency management approach between ONS and NISRA.
6. The Board noted the update and would continue to remain engaged as the work progressed. The difference in the Board’s relationship with the TLFS (ONS) and LMS (NISRA) was acknowledged. NISRA and ONS welcomed the oversight by the Board as an opportunity to be held accountable together. Given the criticality of this work to UK labour market statistics members sought clarity on whether ONS or NISRA needed anything specific to help resolve the issues. NISRA and ONS welcomed the ability to work together and the support being provided by ONS to NISRA was beneficial. Within ONS there was full support across the organisation for delivery of TLFS. The issues being addressed were challenging statistical methodological issues that required time to work through.
7. Plans were in place on the sequencing of discussions within ONS by the Executive Committee (ExCo) ahead of the Board in July 2026 on the TLFS readiness assessment, These included workshops for ExCo and Non-executive Directors. With regard to timing the ONS’s latest Labour Market Transformation update in April, had included the refreshed narrative on transition timing moving away from November 2026 into 2027.

9. Update from the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee Chair

1. The Chair reported on the work of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee which had last met on 14 May.
2. The Committee had considered:
   1. the pre audit financial position at year-end 2026/26 with an under expenditure;
   2. the draft Annual Report and Accounts 2025/26;
   3. the updated strategic risk profile with a reduction in strategic risks reporting out of appetite reflecting the progress made across the organisation;
   4. delivery of the Internal Audit Plan 2025/26 and discussion of a number of limited assurance Internal Audit reports including FTE Forecasting, Skills and Resourcing, Economic Statistics Plan and Working with External Organisations;
   5. the Annual Fraud Report 2025/26; and
   6. the annual update on cyber security providing a high level of assurance.
3. The Committee noted that the Annual Report and Accounts may need to be updated depending on the timing for publication of the PACAC report on the work of the Authority.

10. Update from the Population Statistics System Committee Chair

1. The Chair reported on the work of the Population Statistics System Committee which had last met on 20 May.
2. The Committee had considered:
   1. an update from the Executive Director for Population, Census and Social Statistics including the census risk profile and Management Information;
   2. delivery progress of Census 2031 from a Devolved Government perspective;
   3. a presentation on census response and wave of contact and how the Census 2027 Test would target hard to reach groups; and
   4. the work by OSR on population estimates.
3. The Committee had highlighted the need for further work on risk reporting in order to provide the required level of assurance.

11. Communications Strategy [SA(26)36]

1. Sarah Moore and Peter Barron provided an update to the Board on ONS’s evolving communications strategy, including website transformation and the latest media sentiment. Patrick Scott also joined to present on progress of the website transformation.
2. The Board heard that the external sentiment rating for the period since the last meeting had returned to amber reflecting some of the media coverage of economic statistics, TLFS and hybrid working during this period.
3. With regard to the Communications Strategy refreshed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were in place with the aim of being proactive with the media, increasing stakeholder support, maintaining public trust, building international engagement and the launch of outputs via the new ONS website platform by December 2026. The aims of the content and website transformation was to stabilise and future proof the website; to modernise content standards; and to deliver a basic Application Programming Interface.
4. Board members discussed the approach. The following points were made in discussion:
   1. the refreshed KPIs were stretching as they linked directly to ONS delivery. The need to mitigate risks to ensure delivery at key points as per the timeline was noted;
   2. the importance of maintaining public trust and the challenges in relation to bringing 18-34 year olds closer to the overall trust level of 83 per cent;
   3. the need to ensure the most effective mechanism is in place so that any AI summaries accurately reference ONS;
   4. the operating model for updating content was centralised with a partnership model for specific releases with the business areas drafting the content; and
   5. the value placed on Nomis by users and the need to carefully consider how its replacement would provide functionality required by users. This would be considered in April 2027 as part of phase two of the programme, focusing on decommissioning legacy systems
5. The Board welcomed the update and commended the work and progress by ONS reaching this point. It was noted that the approach by James Benford to stakeholder engagement had been effective and would be useful to extend to other colleagues across the organisation using a similar approach.