04 February 2005
The Office for National Statistics must be granted the same independence from political interference as the National Audit Office if public confidence in the UK's economic data is to be restored, a leading academic warned this week.
Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, said: 'Political rows have ensured that the public is now heavily sceptical about economic data. The only way of moving on, with the issue of confidence in that data in mind, is to make the ONS independent in the same way as the NAO. That means making it accountable to Parliament and removing it entirely from the framework of government.'
Travers was speaking in the wake of Oxford academic Sir Tony Atkinson's final report on measurements of UK public sector productivity, published on January 31, which will lead to a new system of measuring outputs across sectors such as education, health and social services.
National statistician Len Cook this week announced the establishment of the UK Centre for the Management of Government Activity, operating out of the ONS and charged with developing Atkinson's recommendations. Joe Grice, deputy head of the Treasury's Government Economic Service, will head the new unit. But Travers believes this would not necessarily insulate the ONS from political interference.
Last year, Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown were accused of 'politicising' the ONS by demanding an explanation from Cook of why the massive injection of cash into public services since 1998 had not produced comparable rises in official outputs.
Ministers claimed that measurements of productivity, which rely on a traditional 'inputs equals outputs' measurement, were insufficient to capture service improvements.
Critics, led by Conservative shadow chancellor Oliver Letwin, said the situation reflected the economic 'waste' across public services.
No sooner had Atkinson published Measurement of government output and productivity for the National Accounts than a new row erupted.
Letwin seized on the ONS's commitment to include several of Atkinson's recommendations in the 2005 National Accounts. Cook said new measurements of schools' productivity could be published just one week before the expected general election in May – providing a potential boost to the government.
Letwin, who this week launched a draft Bill to make the ONS independent of government, said: 'Labour has a dismal track record of waste in public services and no-one is going to believe a newly created statistic that tells them otherwise.'
PFfeb2005
