Next meeting: 25 September 2025, Colby House Boardroom, Belfast

Members present

• Sir Robert Chote (Chair)
• Dr Jacob Abboud
• Peter Barron
• Ed Humpherson
• Prof. Sir David Spiegelhalter
• Professor Mairi Spowage
• Professor Dame Carol Propper
• Emma Rourke
• Dr Sarah Walsh
• Penny Young

Other attendees

• June Bowman
• Grant Fitzner
• Sarah Moore
• Tom Taylor
• Rob Kent-Smith (for item 4)
• Jane Naylor (for item 7)
• Jason Bradbury (for item 7)
• Steve Ellerd-Elliott (for item 7)
• Alex Lambert (for item 8)
• Kate Davies (for item 8)
• Philippa Bonay (for item 9)

Secretariat

• Sally Jones
• Sarah Cobden

Apologies

• None

1. Apologies

1. There were no apologies.

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 26 June 2025 were approved.

4. Report from the Authority Chair [SA(25)36]

1. Non-Executive Directors had met before the meeting.
2. The Chair reported on activities since the Board last met, highlighting the following:
   1. the recruitment for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) Permanent Secretary was progressing well through the necessary processes;
   2. the recruitment of a new independent member for the Audit and Risk Assurance Committee (ARAC) was nearly complete;
   3. the campaign for a new Authority Chair was live and would close on 5 September, current Deputy Chair, Penny Young would act as Chair during any interim period;
   4. the Chair and Deputy Chair planned to meet with the ScotStat Board to discuss the 2031 Census and how the Boards can cooperate to ensure coordination across the devolved administrations; and
   5. to improve visibility and transparency, non-Executive Directors were considering how to communicate what was discussed at Board meetings to staff. This would be discussed further with the new Permanent Secretary.

5. Report from the Chief Executive [SA(25)37]

1. Emma Rourke provided the Board with an overview of activity and issues since the last meeting highlighting the following:
   1. following changes to ONS’s executive governance, the Executive Committee (ExCo) continued to meet weekly and the meetings had been extended to two hours. This would ensure there would be sufficient time to discuss items and progress through the volume of work;
   2. ExCo had discussed a paper on the prioritisation and financing of the Census 2031 Taskforce. ExCo agreed the 2031 census was a priority for the organisation, alongside the Economic Statistics Plan (ESP) and Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan (SIEP). At their July meeting, the Inter-Administration Committee endorsed a UK wide platform to improve coherence of census data;
   3. there were ongoing and challenging discussions with union representatives on the policy for mandatory office attendance;
   4. the Civil Service gender pay gap information had been published which showed the ONS was performing better than the wider Civil Service in terms of pay and bonus gap;
   5. James Benford would begin his role as Director General for Economic, Social, and Environmental Group on 4 August. Emma thanked Grant Fitzner for his interim leadership and his work on the ESP. James was already undergoing an induction on key issues and was attending various meetings; and
   6. there was significant demand from delegated grades for increased Q&A sessions with senior leaders. There was a goal to move towards a more forward facing, solution-orientated phase in the organisation’s recovery.
2. The following points were raised in discussion:
   1. recovery following the unsatisfactory data governance internal audit was raised. The next steps were discussed and members were informed that actions were underway. An update would be provided to the September ARAC meeting;
   2. there were ongoing discussions around the financial position and how to reallocate resources to deliver high-priority projects; and
   3. a lessons learned exercise following the closure of the Integrated Data Service had been initiated and the ONS would welcome the honest and constructive feedback. As a Government Major Portfolio Project (GMPP), this would be part of a formal National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) gateway review and would be published.
3. The members noted the update.

6. Report from the Director General for Regulation [SA(25)38]

1. Ed Humpherson and Rob Kent-Smith provided an overview of regulatory activities since the last meeting. The update focused on the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) budget proposal and asked the Board to approve the recommendation for OSR’s 2026/27 and 2028/29 budget.
2. Members heard that the recommendation was supported by Regulation Committee at their July meeting. The proposed intermediate option would deliver additional regulatory capacity.
3. The following points were raised in discussion:
   1. the OSR budget had received a flat cash settlement for the previous three budget cycles. A cut to the budget would lead to a loss of capacity and reduced ability to regulate;
   2. the priorities for OSR included delivering risk-based regulation and managing the backlog of statistics that had not been reviewed in some time;and
   3. an early approval of the budget would allow OSR to initiate recruitment immediately.
4. Members were supportive of the uplifted budget which would support increased capacity to deliver OSR’s priorities.

7. Report from the Chair of Regulation Committee

1. Professor Dame Carol Propper provided an update. Regulation Committee last met on 21 July. She informed members that Regulation Committee had discussed the OSR budget settlement at length and recommended the proposed option based on the importance of strengthening the regulation of official statistics, systematic risks identified by Ed Humpherson, and the support expressed by the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC).

8. Communications update

1. Peter Barron and Sarah Moore reported on recent media coverage of ONS and reflected on positive coverage of some statistics that had been published. There had been some negative coverage following the publication of the Devereux Review. It was anticipated that there would be further negative coverage to come in reaction to the PACAC hearings. Following publication of the ESP and SIEP initial feedback from stakeholders had been positive based on the publication of the ESP and SIEP.

9. Government Statistical Service [SA(25)39]

1. Joint Deputy Heads of the Government Statistical Service (GSS), Jane Naylor, Jason Bradbury and Steve Ellerd-Elliott, presented on the challenges and opportunities for the UK Statistical System. They asked for the Board’s reflections on the implementation of the GSS strategic vision and considered how best to engage with the Authority Board.
2. The Board heard that the GSS was focused on four key issues including governance, funding and prioritisation, community and collaboration, and future of leadership and career development. The following points were raised in discussion:
   1. the challenge of ensuring prioritisation and coherence across a non-centralised system. Members discussed how best to ensure collaboration between the Authority, the National Statistician and the GSS;
   2. it would be valuable to raise the Board’s visibility within the GSS through events;
   3. the HoPs were hoping to build community, with an emphasis on diversity and inclusion;
   4. the Authority Strategy could support the GSS with prioritisation;
   5. there was strong support for the development of a talent pipeline to build capability and skills of statisticians not just their statistical skills but to be future leaders, as outlined in the Devereux Review; and
   6. the temporary splitting of the National Statistician and Permanent Secretary role might lead to greater capacity for the National Statistician to engage with the GSS. The Authority Strategy should highlight the value of the GSS and encourage collaboration across the system.
3. The Board commended the coherent proposition and thanked the Deputy Heads for their work to support the Acting National Statistician. Members offered to participate in events to raise the Board’s visibility. It was agreed that the Board would periodically attend Heads of Profession meetings to give an update on Board activity.

10. Economic Statistics Plan update [SA(25)40] and Survey Improvement Plan update [SA(25)41] 

1. Grant Fitzner, Alex Lambert and Kate Davies introduced respective papers updating on the progress and report early warnings of risks to the Economic Statistics Plan and Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan.
2. Members heard that projects had been set up with strong governance structures and strong reporting line into ExCo. The following points were raised in discussion:
   1. there had been progress on moving Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) online but there were still risks as outlined in the paper;
   2. the field interviewer headcount had a net increase of 135 since April 2025 and the number of completed interview responses to the Living Costs and Food Survey had increased since June 2025;
   3. the capability to remove legacy technology was a concern and could impact the ability to progress on other parts of the plan, with the potential that some milestones may need to be descoped if the organisation was not able to move away from legacy technology;
   4. the significant scale up in field community brought some managerial challenges so there was a need for greater resource devoted to managing capability around such a large scale increase;
   5. processes had been introduced to reduce field force turnover and there was a more granular planning approach with greater focus on regional recruitment to target key areas;
   6. while opportunities for redeployment of staff to priority areas had been identified, the pace of deployment was slower and there was still a skills gap. To help resolve this, 100 new roles had been approved in areas of Economic Statistics Production and Analysis, and Macro-Economic Statistics Analysis.
   7. deprioritisation would need to be handled carefully with colleagues, with a key focus on ensuring core outputs were appropriately resourced;
   8. there would be greater use of existing methodologies and pipelines to streamline the outputs.
3. Members noted the update and were supportive of the successes and progress made while recognising the challenges and the need to keep monitoring progress.

11. People update [SA(25)42] 

1. Philippa Bonay presented a set of slides which provided a people update to the Board on key developments in recruitment, staff turnover, speaking up and whistleblowing. There was ongoing work on colleague sentiment by the Communications directorate. People and Business Services (PBS) were working to ensure there were strong procedures and policies for colleagues wishing to raise a concern and speak up. The following points were raised in discussion:
   1. PBS had been working with the Chair of ARAC to respond to feedback from the People item presented at the June ARAC meeting;
   2. there was a need for better understanding of the skills within the organisation. PBS were working with directors on increased granularity to be able to respond to demand signals and ensure the organisation was equipped with the correct skills;
   3. it might be beneficial to investigate whether an ONS specific strategy would be useful for prioritisation;
   4. lessons would be learned from the actions taken following the 2023 psychological safety report to resolve ongoing culture issues also identified in the Devereux Review;
   5. the NEDs had recently developed a route for SCS colleagues to contact them. There was some discussion on the need to make sure this did not confuse the raising a concern/whistleblowing processes. NEDs felt it was important that staff had an opportunity to engage with them directly but understood PBS concerns. Strategy and Policy colleagues would work with PBS and NEDs to ensure the processes could be complimentary;
   6. members appreciated the strategic workforce planning and suggested that it would be useful to build on this in preparation for the ESP;
   7. it would be beneficial for members to understand a timeline of the actions implemented against the People Survey actions and other major reviews to assure the Board of progress, what has worked and lessons learnt;
   8. targets and measures of success would be important markers of progress and PBS were working to implement updated targets within Management Information since changes to governance to ensure the targets reflected the strategic goals of the organisation; and
   9. a cohesive message from the senior leadership team would be vital when communicating changes in prioritisation to business areas and junior colleagues. There should be an emphasis on moving away from siloed working and improving cohesiveness across the organisation.
2. Members noted the update.

Action:

Secretariat to share PBS slides with Board members.

12. Any other business

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