Next meeting: 25 July 2024, London Boardroom

Members present

• Sir Robert Chote (Chair)
• Dr Jacob Abboud
• Professor Sir John Aston
• Professor Sir Ian Diamond
• Ed Humpherson
• Professor Dame Carol Propper
• Emma Rourke
• Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter
• Penny Young

Also in attendance

• Pete Benton (for item 10)
• Nigel Green (for item 10)
• Mike Keoghan
• Sally Jones
• Alex Lambert (for item 9)
• Sarah Moore
• Will Marks (for item 12)
• Tom Taylor

Apologies

• Nora Nanayakkara
• Sian Jones

1. Apologies

1. Apologies were noted from Sian Jones and Nora Nanayakkara.

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 May were agreed, subject to a minor amendment and actions were reviewed. Sarah Moore provided an update on the development of Statistical Assembly in response to the recommendation from the Lievesley Review. Discussions had been held with the Royal Statistical Society. Timing had not yet been agreed for the first Assembly.

4. Report from the Authority Chair [SA(24)28]

1. Non-Executive Directors had met before the meeting. They had discussed progress of the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) and Labour Force Survey (LFS).
2. The Chair paid warm tribute to Nora Nanayakkara, with her term ending on 1 July 2024. Nora had been a highly valued member of the Board and Chair of the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee. Professor Sir Ian Diamond paid tribute to Nora on behalf of the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
3. The Chair informed the meeting of changes to Board membership. Penny Young had agreed to take on the role as Acting Deputy Chair, which was agreed by the Board. The formal process with ministerial approval would be completed following the election. With regard to executive membership it was noted that Emma Rourke had taken on the role as the third executive member of the Board with effect from this meeting, alongside Sir Ian and Ed Humpherson.
4. The Chair reported on his recent activities since the Board last met:
   1. on 4 June Sir Robert had written to all leaders of the UK political parties regarding their transparent use of statistics during the election campaign, and had appeared on BBC Radio Four Today Programme on 6 June; and
   2. Sir Robert had met Baroness Neville-Rolfe on 5 June for his annual appraisal including a discussion on the key themes out of the Lievesley review
5. Sir Robert and Sir Ian were scheduled to meet Alastair McAlpine, Chief Statistician Scottish Government that afternoon to discuss planning for the Authority Board’s meeting in Edinburgh in September. It was noted that following a refresh of the National Statistician’s Executive Group all Devolved Administration Chief Statisticians had been invited as members.

5. Report from the Chief Executive [SA(24)29]

1. Sir Ian provided the Board with an overview of activity and issues since the last meeting, highlighting the following:
   1. as part of the King’s Birthday Honours List, Philippa Bonay had been awarded an OBE for public and charitable services;
   2. Mary Gregory had been selected as the Royal Statistical Society William Guy Lecturer for primary schools for the 2024/25 academic year;
   3. the results of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry module one would be published in August;
   4. progress of the work on the future of population and migration statistics with a focus on strategic engagement post-election;
   5. Richard Layard’s letter in the Guardian, which referenced ONS’ Annual Population Survey including a question as a measure of life satisfaction;
   6. the ongoing recruitment campaign for methodologists for statistical output teams, which had attracted a high volume of applications;
   7. Sir Ian had attended the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Conference of European Statisticians; and
   8. ongoing work by Economic Social and Environment Group on changes to the System of National Accounts.
2. Board members discussed the update and highlighted the value of the Data Masterclass for Senior Leaders. It was noted that the Data Science Campus were considering how best to maintain the masterclass going forward.

6. Report from the Director General of Regulation [SA(24)30]

1. Ed Humpherson provided an update on regulation activity, highlighting the approach by OSR to the election, with resources in place to respond quickly.
2. OSR had published a number of statements covering statistics on key topics and what to look for when used publicly. OSR had reviewed and published the Intervention Policy following Regulation Committee feedback. OSR had made a number of interventions throughout the election period and had published a statement highlighting the importance of transparency in election claims. This was a result of casework concerns following ITV’s election debate on 4 June, where it had been claimed that a Labour government would mean £2000 of tax rises per working household.
3. The Board noted the Authority’s refreshed Intervention Policy.

7. 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 25 June 2025.
2. Dr Jacob Abboud reported that based on the work of the Committee during the year and assurance work carried out by external and internal auditors, it was his opinion that the Authority’s governance and control framework was generally effective. The Committee had welcomed the Moderate audit opinion by the Head of Internal Audit. The Committee had noted thanks to the Finance, Risk and Assurance and Internal Audit teams for all of their work during the course of the year.
3. The Board noted their thanks to the Chair and the Committee for their work during 2023/24 and endorsed the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee’s annual report.

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 Thursday 6 June.
2. The Committee had considered:
   1. changes to the Intervention Policy, which were agreed as part of OSR’s work around election preparedness;
   2. an update on OSR’s work on the regulation of Economic Statistics including the draft assessment report – Ensuring public sector classification;
   3. emerging findings of OSR’s assessment of Administrative Based Population Estimates and a presentation by Professor Arkadiusz Wisniowski;
   4. OSR’s draft Annual Report 2023/24; and
   5. the Data Sharing and Linkage Report and timing for publication alongside the State of the Statistical System 2024 Report.
3. The Committee had also attended a workshop in June on the refresh of the Code of Practice for Statistics.

9. Transformed Labour Force Survey/Labour Force Survey [SA(24)31]

1. Alex Lambert introduced a paper which provided the first in a series of regular monthly updates to the Authority Board on the progress of the Labour Force Survey and the Transformed Labour Force Survey.
2. Alex Lambert informed the Board that based on ONS’ internal readiness assessment, the external review by Professors Chambers and Brown and feedback from key stakeholders the TLFS/LFS project was proceeding on the basis that the parallel run for the TLFS and LFS would continue, and that labour market statistics would not transition to the TLFS in September. It was noted that a cross office collaborative approach was being taken to address the challenges around TLFS/LFS. Maintaining LFS operational performance and statistical quality during the parallel run would continue to be a key focus. A short strategic design review was being undertaken to inform the approach going forward and a discussion by the Executive Committee (ExCo) early July to confirm final parallel run decisions including cost implications, any proposed design changes to the TLFS and an updated forward plan. As part of the review options for improving the quality of the TLFS including reducing the length of the current questionnaire were being considered. Following the discussion by ExCo internal and external engagement communication of the way forward would be issued. It was noted that progress against updated milestones, performance against agreed quality and decommissioning criteria and mitigation of key risks and issues would form the basis for the monthly updates to Board.
3. Board members discussed the progress of the TLFS/LFS. The following points were made in discussion:
   1. the need to understand the cost implications of extending the parallel run beyond June and the wider impact on other surveys;
   2. the impact of extending the parallel run on the Social Surveys Quality Recovery Plan, which had been based on reassigning field force staff working on the LFS to other social surveys;
   3. the challenges of managing an increasing field force and its capabilities in addition to addressing the ongoing statistical and methodological challenges. It was noted that an increased field force would help maintain the quality of the LFS during the parallel run;
   4. the need to mitigate the risk of destabilising the comparability of the parallel run dataset as a result of the number of changes proposed to improve the quality of the TLFS;
   5. the importance of transparent reporting to the Board in the coming months and an acknowledgement that evidence based decisions by the Executive would be made at the appropriate time, not imminently;
   6. the importance of effective user and stakeholder engagement and communication regarding delivery progress, any delays and the implications of a shorter TLFS survey, including the removal of non-labour market questions. The current published position is that ONS would transition to the TLFS as the main source of labour market statistics from September 2024;
   7. as part of stakeholder engagement the first National Statistician’s Stakeholder Advisory Panel, chaired by Professor Jonathan Portes had been held in June. The panel had supported the view that extending the parallel run was needed and the proposal to update the LFS and TLFS to use the latest population estimates;
   8. consideration by ExCo in July to broaden project engagement by convening a stakeholder engagement group including the Bank of England, Office for Budget Responsibility, Home Office and the Department of Work and Pensions; and
   9. the value of updating LFS and TLFS to use the latest population estimates to address users concerns with the under-recording of population totals in the LFS.
4. The Board noted the update and highlighted the importance of transparent reporting to the Board in the coming months, setting out clearly the delivery plans, challenges, risks to delivery and how they were being mitigated. It was agreed that Sir Ian would meet regularly with Penny Young to discuss delivery progress of the TLFS/LFS.

10. Integrated Date Service [SA(24)32]

1. Pete Benton and Nigel Green introduced a paper which provided an update on the progress of delivery of the Integrated Data Service (IDS), highlighting that since the last meeting the programme had been reset to provide clarity on the key priorities and to strengthen and simplify governance.
2. The Board heard that the rescoped programme set out the service design and prioritised the delivery of a robust user centric service. Programme governance had been strengthened and was being implemented. An action plan was in development in response to the recommendations from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority targeted review of programme delivery. Critical success factors for the programme included the need for high value linked datasets available for analysis.
3. Board members discussed the update. The following points were considered in discussion:
   1. the revised programme scope with a focus on prioritising government analysts to enable rapid access to linked datasets;
   2. concern around the shift in programme scope at this point, which seemed heavily reliant on a cultural change in behaviours amongst data providers;
   3. the importance of delivering the IDS as planned as a greenfield project and dependency in relation to future funding;
   4. the complexity of data sharing across government and a renewed focus to identify use cases that would enable analysts to access and use the data more rapidly;
   5. the change in timing for migrating users from the Secure Research Service (SRS). The revised timeline would see users of the SRS migrated at the right point in time;
   6. the potential uses of administrative data in population and business statistics, subject to access to departmental data sets; and
   7. the link between the future of population and migration statistics and delivery of the IDS.
4. The Board noted the update and highlighted the need for a clear timeline for delivery of the rescoped programme, and future reporting against the critical success factors.

11. Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24 [SA(24)34]

1. Tom Taylor introduced the final draft of the Authority’s Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24, which had been reviewed and approved by the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee.
2. Members noted the achievements made by the organisation over the last year with a suggestion for a minor amendment to the foreword.
3. The Board approved the Authority’s Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24 for signature by Sir Ian as Accounting Officer in readiness for certification by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The aim was to lay the report before Parliament before the summer recess.

12. General Election (day one readiness) [SA(24)33]

1. Will Marks provided an update on the work undertaken in preparation for the pre and post-election period being led by the National Statistician’s Private Office in collaboration with colleagues across the office including the Parliamentary Unit, Analytical Hub and Policy Liaison Unit.
2. The Board heard that work had been undertaken to develop a plan of action for day one briefings and potential opportunities. It was noted that the pre-election period had delayed the publication of the recommendation on the Future of population and Migration Statistics, which had not impacted delivery. The Authority’s response to the Lievesley review would be published once the pre-election period concluded. Work was ongoing in preparation for engagement and response to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report on Transforming the UK Evidence Base.
3. Board members discussed the potential areas of focus post-election. It was noted that initial preparations had begun on the next spending review.

13. Any other business

1. The Board would next meet on Thursday 25 July.