Last month,
RSS President Deborah Ashby wrote to the Scottish First Minister in support of a Scottish Parliament bill that proposes ending pre-release access to official statistics, a practice that the RSS has long campaigned against.
Last week, the RSS received a response from Kate Forbes, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Finance, explaining why the Scottish Government opposes the pre-release access bill.
Today, the chair of RSS’s National Statistics Advisory Group – Steve Penneck – replied to Kate Forbes, explaining why we feel that the Scottish Government’s practice is contrary to the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice.
We have also brought the correspondence to the attention of the Office for Statistics Regulation.
You can read all the letters below.
Letter from Deborah Ashby to Nicola Sturgeon (PDF)
Letter from Kate Forbes to Deborah Ashby (PDF)
Letter from Steve Penneck to Kate Forbes (PDF)
Letter from Steve Penneck to Ed Humpherson (PDF)