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

• 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

Secretariat

• Sally Jones
• Jo-Anna Hagen

Apologies

• Sarah Moore

1. Apologies

1. Apologies were noted from Sarah Moore.

2. Declarations of Interest

1. There were no new conflicts of interest.

3. Minutes and matters arising from previous meetings

1. The minutes of the previous meeting held on 26 February were agreed.

4. Report from the Authority Chair [SA(26)17]

1. The Chair reported on her activities since the Board last met. A session had been held for Non-executive Directors (NEDs) on 18 March, led by Megan Cooper on lessons learned from the Integrated Data Programme. Introductory meetings with NEDs had also been held with Megan Cooper in her new role as ONS Director Economic Statistics Improvement.
2. Interviews for the National Statistician recruitment process had concluded with an announcement on the appointment to follow in due course. As agreed a panel had been convened to assure key Government Statistical Service (GSS) guidance on behalf of the Board in the absence of a National Statistician and would be considering a range of topics.
3. It was noted that the draft ONS Business Plan would be circulated in correspondence to NEDs ahead of a substantive discussion at April Board. Timing for the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) report on the work of the Authority had not yet been confirmed. It was agreed Secretariat would schedule weekly meetings for NEDs to ensure an opportunity for early discussion on publication of the report. The Chair and Permanent Secretary agreed that it would be useful to provide a further update to PACAC on delivery to date.
4. With regard to the Board dashboard it was agreed that further information on Internal Audits completed would be included as well as the total number.

5. Report from the Permanent Secretary [SA(26)18]

1. Darren Tierney provided the Board with an overview of activity and issues since the last meeting highlighting the following:
   1. the proposed new hybrid working principles developed jointly with the unions had been shared with colleagues across the organisation. Union members would be voting on these until the end of the month;
   2. the business planning process was near completion including a delivery pipeline, which would need further prioritisation with a focus on deliverability. The Executive Committee (ExCo) would provide the forum on how to balance competing priorities across ONS major programmes including census and economic statistics;
   3. the recruitment process for Director General for Digital, Data and Technology had concluded with an announcement on the successful candidate to follow; and
   4. following the 2025 People Survey anonymous quarterly pulse surveys would be undertaken with the first in April to provide a regular view of colleague sentiment across the year;
2. Members discussed the update and highlighted the importance of the policies in place in relation to psychological safety, safeguarding, speaking up and whistleblowing and hybrid working principles including the responsibility of bystanders.

6. Report from the National Statistician’s Office [SA(26)19]

1. Lucinda Eggleton provided an update on activities across the National Statistician’s Office (NSO) highlighting the following:
   1. NSO colleagues had conducted the final phase of international statistical leadership training programme, which had been co-developed with the UN Economic Commission for Africa in 2019 and would be handed over to an African institution to increase sustainability;
   2. James Benford led the ONS delegation at the 57^th UN Statistical Commission held in March. The Board heard that James Benford had subsequently been invited to give a keynote speech for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to talk about the approach by ONS to its recovery plans. The Commission had considered Artificial Intelligence (AI) Readiness and had agreed the establishment of a City Group on AI Readiness;
   3. NSO’s analysis and methods team had undertaken analysis for the Department of Work and Pensions to feed into an interim report for the Young People in Work Report, due for publication later in the year;
   4. focus groups had been held for the Young Voices project exploring how young people from diverse backgrounds feel about sharing their views with government for research purposes. An update would be provided for the Board at a future meeting; and
   5. a potential risk in relation to the seniority of Head of Profession (HoP) positions with some evidence that a few departments are debating the seniority of HoP posts in response to departmental funding pressure. This is a potential concern when the GSS is aiming to enhance the talent pipeline.
2. Members discussed the report and expressed concern about the potential risk to seniority of HoP roles. It was agreed the Chair would discuss this as part of her regular meetings with the Deputy Heads of GSS. It was noted that a workshop for the Chair and Audit and Risk Assurance Committee NEDs on system wide risks was in the process of being scheduled and would take place ahead of the April Board meeting.
3. Members highlighted the importance of learning lessons from the previous attempt at developing a GSS wide dissemination platform, which had proven extremely challenging and failed, to the ongoing work to developing a vision of a unified government platform for statistics.

7. Report from the Director General of Regulation [SA(26)20]

1. Ed Humpherson updated the Board on the work by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) since the last meeting focusing on OSR’s themes as set out in its strategy published in November 2025: OSR as a credible and rigorous regulator, system catalyst and public use of statistics.
2. OSR had published its compliance review of Gross Domestic Product Seasonality and had written to Mary Gregory, ONS Executive Director, Population, Census and Social Statistics, acknowledging ONS’s revised plans for the 2025 midyear population estimates continuing with existing methods.
3. OSR colleagues had been invited to present to a group of special advisors at No.10 on the expectations for Ministers and officials when they use data and analysis in public life. In advance of the elections in Scotland and Wales OSR published a series of explainers on the statistics on key issues that are likely to arise in election campaigns.
4. Members discussed the update including the information provided on the current position of de-accreditations. It was clarified that the largest by volume related in some way to the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The second category related to those that would likely be reaccredited at some point and a third category that would not be reaccredited due to fundamental structural reasons on quality.
5. The Board noted the update and agreed that as the regulator for the statistics system it would be appropriate for the public to hear from OSR colleagues.

8. Report from the Chair of the Regulation Committee

1. The Chair reported on the work of the Regulation Committee, which had last met on 11 March 2026.
2. The Committee had considered:
   1. the work on Intelligent Transparency:
   2. the approach to developing the annual State of the Statistical System Report;
   3. OSR’s plans for regulatory oversight of ONS population and migration statistics and delivery of recovery plans;
   4. exploratory work into filling the evidence gap left by the discontinuation of the Public Confidence in Official Statistics Survey; and
   5. delivery progress on OSR’s evaluation strategy and development of key performance indicators.
3. The Board noted the update.

9. Report from the Chair of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee

1. The Chair reported on the work of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee, which had last met on 12 March 2026.
2. The Committee had considered:
   1. the financial position of the organisation, the forecast year end surplus and the approach to managing the financial strategic risk in 2026/27 to avoid a surplus position at that point;
   2. the strategic risk profile, with over half of the risks reporting outside of appetite and a focus on mitigating activities and route to green plans;
   3. the refreshed strategic risk profile following workshops, ahead of a substantive discussion at April Board;
   4. follow up audits on Reproducible Analytical Pipelines and Data Governance and an audit on Website development;
   5. delivery of the Internal Audit Plan 2025/26; and
   6. the draft Internal Audit Plan 2026/27 and agreement that it required further consideration to ensure it focused on the right topics and ONS had the capacity to deliver it, alongside delivery of recovery plans.
3. The Board noted the update.

10. Report from the Chair of the Population Statistics System Committee

1. The Chair reported on the work of the Population Statistics System Committee, which had last met on 25 March 2026.
2. The Committee had considered:
   1. an update from the Executive Director for Population, Census and Social Statistics including the response to the Census topic consultation and the ethnicity harmonised standard and the first iteration of Management Information;
   2. plans for the mid-year population estimates using the current methodology;
   3. programme resourcing; and
   4. development of the key strategic risks to the delivery of the Census programme, with the need for further work.
3. The Committee had also discussed the interplay between the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee and the Population Statistics Committee to the oversight and scrutiny of the Census Strategic Risk (SR). Following discussions by Mary Gregory, Jason Zawadzki, Secretariat with Dr Sarah Walsh and Dr Jacob Abboud an approach had been agreed. The PSS would provide detailed oversight of the Census Strategic Risk and underpinning key risks, with risk a standing item at PSS. The Audit and Risk Assurance Committee would provide oversight of the Census SR as part of the overall update on the strategic risk profile to every meeting supported by oral updates on PSS risk discussions by Dr Walsh, (who is a member of both ARAC and PSS). ARAC will also have the opportunity to commission Census risk deep dives as needed.

11. Communications Update

1. Peter Barron reported on recent media coverage since the last meeting. Media coverage and sentiment continued to be more balanced. The annual update of the inflation basket of goods had achieved positive coverage.
2. The Board noted the report and the value of monitoring the range of ONS media coverage.

12. National Statistician’s Office Model [SA(26)21]

1. As this area is policy in development, this part of the minute will be published upon completion.

13. Economic Statistics Plan [SA(26)22]

1. Megan Cooper and James Benford introduced a paper, which focused on the next quarterly progress update for the Economic Statistics Plan and Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan scheduled for publication on 15 April. The publication reflected feedback from non-executive directors, ExCo and the external senior level steering group. Feedback included the need for clarity on the realism of the plans and delivery confidence, the impact of missed milestones and the practical impact of items in the ‘waiting room’. It was noted that further work was needed on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) with plans in place to publish some examples of KPIs on the day of publication.
2. The Board heard that key achievements since the last publication included the incorporation of grocery scanner data into consumer prices statistics and the introduction of data rotation for the Transformed Labour Force Survey. Areas of focus for future improvement included the implementation of International Macroeconomic Statistical Standards for implementation by 2030.
3. Members discussed the paper. The following points were made in discussion:
   1. the timing of publication for both the next ESP/SIEP and Labour Market Transformation update quarterly publications with confirmation that both would be published on the same day, which the Board supported;
   2. the importance of KPIs and the need for clarity on achievements to date, and issues and remaining challenges, would be beneficial for users;
   3. whether it would be beneficial to include details of LFS and TLFS response rates in the Executive Summary and further detail of the progress of the recently approved project by ExCo to examine the feasibility of mandating household surveys. It was noted that further detail on various aspects of LFS quality including response rates were available in both the in-depth articles on LFS quality, with the next publication in April and the quarterly LFS performance and quality monitoring reports with the next publication in May;
   4. care was needed when referencing response levels as opposed to response rates throughout the publications;
   5. clarity on the work in the ‘waiting room’ would be provided later in the year, on conclusion of business planning and further work on prioritisation; and
   6. the importance of implementing international standards in line with G7 peers. A new programme had been set up to implement new macroeconomic statistical standards, which would now identify the path to implementing them, testing the ambition to implement the core of the new standards by 2030/31.Further consideration on governance would be needed following the outcome of the Internal Audit on Economic Statistics governance.
4. The Board commended ONS on the ESP/SIEP Report scheduled for publication mid-April highlighting the need to clear on areas of challenge and areas of success.

14. Transformed Labour Force Survey [SA(26)23]

1. Alex Lambert introduced a paper which focused on the response to the recent Gateway Review and the next quarterly progress update on the TLFS. As already noted as part of the previous item the next quarterly TLFS communication would be published on the same day as the combined ESP/SIEP publication (mid-April). The data rotation milestone had been met and a decision had been made to proceed with a test later in the year on Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC), following a period of research development and testing on potential solutions for the SIC data quality issue.
2. The Board heard that the publication had been drafted to reflect the strategic communication objectives, to be transparent about programme risks, trade-offs and uncertainties especially around timelines and quality. The draft publication had received broad support from key users at the Labour Market Technical Group and Stakeholder Advisory Panel.
3. Members discussed the draft narrative fully and highlighted the need to provide clarity on what would happen and when set in the wider context. It was noted that the Gateway Review aligned to the programme position that further data collection and assessment would be required post July 2026, which would be reflected in the April publication. By July 2026 only one quarter of data reflecting the latest set of design changes would have been collected and as such further data collection and assessment would be needed to provide sufficient assurance to begin the process of moving away from the Labour Force Survey and as ONS headline labour market statistics. The publication would be underpinned by proactive engagement with users and the media.

15. UK Statistics Assembly [SA(26)24]

1. Lucinda Eggleton introduced a paper which provided an update on delivery of recommendation arising from the inaugural UK Statistics Assembly in January 2025. The Assembly was one of the key recommendations from the review of the Statistics Authority undertaken by Professor Denise Lievesley in March 2024. The Assembly Report set out four priorities: user engagement; granular statistics; greater use of administrative data and UK-wide coherence, each with an ONS and GSS lead to co-ordinate progress.
2. The Board heard that a tracker had been launched to understand progress, and where work had been deprioritised. Going forward regular meetings would be held with Peter Barron to monitor progress with regular updates to the Board. The aim was to publish an update on progress in June and consideration would be given to engagement ahead of the next Assembly.
3. Members discussed the update fully. The following points were made in discussion:
   1. progress had been impacted by resources constraints across the GSS with many departments reducing in size and departmental priorities taking precedent;
   2. the recommendations provided the basis as a way of maintaining momentum with users;
   3. the need to identify a sponsor to lead the work as part of ONS’s business planning process to ensure meaningful progress is made, which would have a multiplier effect across the statistical system;
   4. this work naturally fit with the National Statistician’s Office; and
   5. the need for further consideration on engagement, specifically the suggestion to arrange mini assemblies including resources.
4. The Board stressed the importance of this work and the need for a senior level sponsor to ensure meaningful progress is made in the coming months. The issue of resources would be considered by ONS as part of business planning. A meeting would be scheduled for the Chair, Permanent Secretary and Lucinda Eggleton to ensure momentum.