The Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Labour Market Statistics provides independent advice to the National Statistician on the uses and application of labour market statistics.
The establishment of the Panel was recommended as part of an ONS review of the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) in May 2024.
Overview
The Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Labour Market Statistics (SAPLMS) provides independent advice to the Deputy National Statistician on the production, publication, uses and applications of labour market statistics and their technical aspects.
Introduction
The SAPLMS has been set up to provide advice and guidance across the suite of labour market statistics produced and published by the ONS. This includes the regular publications (monthly, quarterly and annual) as well as the transformation of existing outputs and the development of new statistics. It will also include cover data that is produced by others and published by the ONS.
Functions
The Stakeholder Panel provides independent advice to the Deputy National Statistician, Economic Statistics on the production, uses and applications of ONS labour market statistics and their technical aspects, to ensure that these statistics meet the needs of users and ‘serve the public good’.
Specifically, the Panel will:
- monitor and provide advice on the ONS labour market statistics
transformation project; - raise other relevant issues or topics on the production, use and application of labour market statistics, including on behalf of the user community;
- provide technical expertise on relevant aspects of the ONS labour market statistics work programme;
- identify emerging issues in the technical approaches to labour market statistics and
- provide a report to the Deputy National Statistician, Economic Statistics as appropriate, describing its activities and plans
Reporting and Governance
The SAPLMS advises the Deputy National Statistician, Economic Statistics. The chair of the SAPLMS will present a report as appropriate on the activities of the Panel, for the National Statistician, who in turn can decide whether specific matters need to be discussed by the UK Statistics Authority Board, who are responsible for the compilation, maintenance, and publication of ONS labour market statistics.
Chairing
The chair of the SAPLMS is appointed and will be reviewed periodically by the Deputy National Statistician, Economic Statistics.
The chair sets the Panel’s agenda, guided by the strategic direction the needs of ONS.
The chair also represents the Panel publicly, as necessary.
Membership
Membership of the Panel provides for a mixture of interests and expertise. Members are appointed for fixed terms of three years (with the current term running until June 2027), by the chair and the Deputy National Statistician. Reappointments will be permitted. The composition of the Panel will be reviewed periodically by the chair and the Deputy National Statistician.
The role of each member of the SAPLMS is to participate in consideration of the full range of issues within the remit of the Panel.
In general, substitutes will not be permitted to attend Panel meetings unless with express invitation from the chair. However, for government and Bank of England representatives, the chair accepts that it is sometimes necessary for the Panel member to delegate attendance of the Stakeholder Panel meeting to a colleague, if they are unable attend.
Neither the Chair nor Members are remunerated. All reasonable travel and subsistence costs will be reimbursed.
Transparency / Confidentiality
The Panel will operate transparently. Meeting agendas, papers and minutes will be published shortly after each meeting, unless it is deemed that they are of a sensitive nature. The sensitivity of each paper will be discussed during the meeting, and decisions that have been made will be clearly stated in the minutes.
- Papers that are deemed to be of a sensitive nature (classified SAPLMS MARKET SENSITIVE) will be withheld from publication.
- Papers that are draft versions of scheduled publications will not be published ahead of their scheduled date, but the SAPLMS minutes will clearly state when the final document is expected to be published.
- Work-in-progress papers, for which no publication is scheduled, will be published and clearly labelled.
- Any papers sent by additional correspondence will be published alongside the documents for the following meeting, subject to being non-sensitive and not a draft of a planned publication.
- Any document will remain confidential until published (and will be classified as SAPLMS CONFIDENTIAL).
- In exceptional circumstances, a document could be classified as SAPLMS SHARABLE. It will be published immediately on the UKSA website, and the link will then be shareable by Panel members to colleagues and others.
Panel members will have the opportunity to comment on the minutes before publication for issues of accuracy. The Panel chair will have the final sign off on the minutes. The minutes are made publicly available within six weeks following the meeting date.
Code of Conduct
Panel members are expected to provide their expertise and advice on the topics they are asked to consider. Members are welcome to share papers in advance with colleagues on a need-to-know basis to develop their advice within the constraints outlined in the Confidentiality Undertaking which all panel members are requested to sign. If Panel members wish to share a paper more widely, this can be decided by the chair of the Panel on a case-by-case basis.
On occasion members will be asked to consider topics of a sensitive nature. In these instances, certain restrictions will apply. These will be clearly set out by the Panel secretariat in advance of receiving any papers. Members who feel they are not able to abide with the restrictions will not receive papers and will be asked not to attend the relevant meeting.
Secretariat
The secretariat will be provided by the ONS.
Meetings
The Panel meets at a minimum of 3 times each year.
June 2024
| Member | Position | Declaration of Interest |
|---|---|---|
| Professor Jonathan Portes | Chair | Senior Advisor to Teneo Provides economic advice/consulting services to economic consulting firms, management consulting firms, and financial market participants in the UK and abroad |
| Huw Pill | Bank of England | Member: Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence Advisory Board Member: Income Generation Group Subcommittee of the Advisory Board to the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence |
| Daniel Gallagher | HM Treasury | No relevant interest |
| Stephen Farrington | Office for Budget Responsibility | No relevant interest |
| Steve Ellerd-Elliott | Department for Work and Pensions | No relevant interest |
| Tim Butcher | Low Pay Commission | No relevant interest |
| Tony Wilson | Institute for Employment Studies | No relevant interest |
| Nye Cominetti | The Resolution Foundation | No relevant interest |
| Chaitra Nagaraja | University of Exeter | No relevant interest |
| Xiaowei Xu | Institute for Fiscal Studies | No relevant interest |
| Alan Manning | London School of Economics | No relevant interest |
| David NF Bell | University of Stirling | No relevant interest |
| Stephanie Howarth | Welsh Government | Co-director of Administrative Data Research Wales Member of National Statistics Executive Group |
| Richard Murray | Scottish Government | No relevant interest |
| Philip Wales | Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency | No relevant interest |
| Jonathan Wadsworth | Royal Holloway College, University of London | No relevant interest |
Regular ONS attendees
Mike Keoghan: Deputy National Statistician and Director General, Economic, Social and Environmental Group (ESEG)
Liz McKeown: Director, Economic Statistics Production and Analysis
David Freeman: Head of Labour Market and Households
Heather Bovill: Deputy Director, Economic Statistics Transformation Support and ONS Head of site for Darlington