By Mark Smulian | 15 September 2011
The chair of the UK Statistics Authority is locked in a row with Chancellor George Osborne over unauthorised disclosure of unpublished data.
Osborne has refused to scrap a rule that allows early release of statistics to the Treasury, an arrangement Sir Michael Scholar believes damages public trust in official data.
The disagreement goes back to an incident in May when the Treasury released the April consumer price indexes early to some 400 government officials. The ‘24-hour rule’ allows only 50 people, including ministers and their special advisers, 24 hours notice of statistical releases to enable them to compose reactions in advance.
Scholar told the chancellor in a letter sent on September 13 that he was ‘disappointed’ that Osborne had refused to alter the rule.
‘The Statistics Authority believes that the current arrangements for pre-release access are highly damaging to public trust in official statistics,’ Scholar said.
‘Pre-release access encourages the belief that ministers and their advisers manipulate official statistics.
‘It increases the likelihood of unauthorised disclosure and dishonesty. It is inconsistent with best international practice… and with your own party's stated policy before the last general election.’
Scholar rejected Osborne’s claim that ministers need 24 hours’ notice of statistics because the public expects them to be fully briefed on publication.
‘That expectation could, and should, be changed, in the interests of improving trust in official statistics,’ he wrote.
The UKSA chair added: ‘I appreciate that it would be inconvenient for special advisers and others to lose the 24-hour period in which they can develop a line to take on forthcoming statistics.’
He found it ‘disappointing but unsurprising’ that special advisers had influenced ministers in their decision to reject a change to the 24-hour notice period.
Osborne blamed the May leak on ‘human error and interaction with IT systems’, and said steps had been taken to prevent a repetition.
But he added: ‘Official statistics are crucial to hold the government to account for its policy decisions.
‘The public expect a response at the time of release… any further reduction would not allow the government sufficient time to provide a response in time for the release of statistics.’
