UK STATISTICS AUTHORITY ONS Board Draft Minutes Tuesday, 22 January 2013 Boardroom, Newport Present UK Statistics Authority Professor Sir Adrian Smith (Chair) Dame Moira Gibb Mr Guy Goodwin Mr Paul Layland Dr David Levy (via audio) Ms Jil Matheson Mrs Caron Walker Mr Glen Watson Other Attendees None Secretariat Mr Robert Bumpstead Ms Sarah Green Apologies None Declarations of Interest None 1. Apologies, Minutes and Matters Arising 1.1 The 51st meeting of the ONS Board was held in Newport on Tuesday 22 January 2013. No apologies were received. The minutes of the previous meeting on 18 December 2012 were agreed as a correct record. The Chair noted the recent bad weather at Newport and the Board expressed thanks to all staff for coping with the difficult conditions, including the members of the ELT who had met in Newport the Friday before the meeting. 1.2 Progress with actions was reviewed. It was agreed that in future written notes or updates against actions should be provided with the papers in advance of the meeting, rather than verbal updates being provided at the meeting itself, where this was possible. The following actions were reconfirmed and further agreed: Action: Provide a note about user engagement with development of the ONS website to the next meeting of the ONS Board. Consider this note alongside the planned demonstration of the website at the meeting. Action: Provide a note on the position with News Releases and attach the note to the minutes of the Board meeting for circulation. The note should reflect the context of the recent PASC evidence session and the steer that the National Statistician had given about News Releases at that session. Action: Circulate the note tabled at the Board meeting about LFS response rates. Schedule a seminar-style discussion of response rates for a future meeting, incorporating initial findings from the Census linked study to demonstrate the extent of possible bias from declining response rates. 1.3 It was also confirmed that papers about crime statistics and the new series of the National Statistician’s Quality Reviews (NSQR) had been deferred and would be considered at the February meeting of the ONS Board. The Board heard that the planned topic of the first NSQR would be labour market statistics, with another major economic output likely to be the subject of a second review. 2. Director General’s Report [SA(ONS)(13)01] 2.1 Mr Watson provided an update on key events and meetings that had taken place since the last meeting of the ONS Board. 2.2 Discussions with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) had taken place in respect of the possible involvement of ONS in the administrative data centre initiative. BIS were keen for ONS to play a leading role, perhaps with the data centre in England established first and centres in the other nations to follow. BIS had asked the ESRC to draft a business case, and the National Statistician and the Director General were due to meet with the ESRC to further consider. The ESRC and BIS envisaged that a partnership relationship between the ESRC and ONS might be most suitable. 2.3 It was agreed that a paper setting out the ONS view on its possible role in the administrative data centre proposals would be considered at the February 19 meeting of the ONS Board. This would precede further discussion at the Authority Board meeting on March 5, to include the consideration of the role of the Authority in the initiative too. 2.4 The Board considered the key issues paper, agreed it was still very useful, but also requested that new developments be more clearly highlighted or ranked within the text. 2.5 Progress and events in the following three areas were reviewed: the start of the Blue Book 2013 and 2014 projects and the challenges related to both; the submission of a revised business case for Electronic Data Collection to the Cabinet Office’s Efficiency and Reform Group, together with the associated issues concerning the supplier ; and, the initiation of infraction proceedings by Eurostat against ONS in respect of failure to provide certain data tables. Action: The Board agreed it wished to receive regular updates on each of these topics at future meetings, and in addition, requested that a substantive paper about the Blue Book work also be submitted to a future meeting. 2.6 The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Pete Benton had met recently to discuss the Beyond 2011 project. In this context Ministerial concerns about the creation of large new databases had been considered again. The Board heard that, for the Beyond 2011 project to be viable, it was likely that the creation of such a database was unavoidable. However, it was agreed that the issue would be further investigated by ONS working with the Government Digital Service to confirm that this was the case. International experts on the subject could then be engaged to provide ONS with further advice and evidence. The ESRC would be a good source to help identify such expertise. 3. Finance Reporting Update [SA(ONS)(13)02] 3.1 Mr Layland introduced a paper which provided an update for the ONS Board on the financial position of the Authority as at the end of November 2012. A verbal update on the December position was provided at the meeting, and this showed little difference in the overall picture. A small under spend was anticipated in the financial year, and the under spend was trivial in comparison to the overall budget. 3.2 Recent developments with Eurostat grant funding and with the contractual dispute were reviewed. It was hoped that both issues would be resolved before the end of the financial year. 4. ONS Strategy [SA(ONS)(13)03] 4.1 Mr Watson introduced a draft ONS strategy and recorded his thanks to a group of Deputy Directors who had been working intensively on the strategy over recent weeks. These were Tricia Dodd, Jason Bradbury, Jan Jones and Sally Evans. 4.2 The Board welcomed the draft. The work looked to be about 85 per cent of the way to conclusion. A central element to finalising the strategy would be to clearly describe the core functions and aims of ONS. A clear articulation of what ONS was for, how it differed from other statistics providers, its unique position and why people used its statistics would be helpful. This could include reference to comparability, consistency, quality, standards and access to data. 4.3 A second key feature of the strategy should be a clearer sense and recognition of the wider economic environment, the resource pressures ONS and the public purse faced and an ONS commitment to efficiency. A high-level account of drivers and restraints should be set out ‘up-front’ in the document. The section describing the ‘wide-ranging portfolio’ did not necessarily sit well in this context. 4.4 Another area of discussion was the use of the term ‘customer’ as opposed to ‘user’ in the document. The meeting heard that ‘customer’ was intended to signal to staff the importance of all the people who used ONS statistics, rather than to denote a paying customer or department. The Authority (and GSS) strategy currently referred to ‘users’. 4.5 The following further points were made in discussion. i. People were ultimately a means not an end. It was essential to have motivated staff but the emphasis in the strategy should not be disproportionate or risk appearing too self- serving. ii. Similarly, the emphasis on increasing the impact of ONS might be open to misinterpretation. A strategy which suggested that an aim of ONS was to become more important could be regarded as self-serving. ‘Use’ could be referred to as well as, or instead of, ‘impact’. Certain outputs (i.e. babies’ names) might be popular with the media and receive widespread coverage and so be seen to have ‘impact’, but this was not necessarily sufficient reason to produce them. iii. The section relating to competition could benefit from redrafting. It was helpful to set out the competitive environment, but it was not clear whether ONS was competing or collaborating in this context. Reference to the ‘competitive advantage’ enjoyed by ONS should be reconsidered. iv. The difference between an ‘organisational value’ and an ‘ONS principle’ wasn’t clear and it might be the case that only one of these sets of points was needed. v. The reference to the aim of having ‘delighted’ customers should be deleted. vi. The section relating to Europe might helpfully emphasise leadership and best practice across Europe and the international arena generally, rather than referring to visions or objectives related to the European Union. vii. The time frame for delivering objectives was a little uncertain and sometimes inconsistently referred to. For example, it could be inferred that some objectives were already in train, while others were new but this could be made clearer. viii. The overall strategy addressed a ten year period. A road-map or timetable showing in broad terms how and when objectives would be achieved during that period would be helpful. 4.6 The meeting agreed that the strategy would be redrafted in light of discussion and presented to the February meeting of the Authority Board and any further discussion at the ONS Board as necessary. The revised draft would include a forward from the Director General. The new section to be drafted on the core and other functions of ONS could be a useful free-standing document to refer to for all Authority non-executive directors.