Following an initial consultation response, the RSS held an in-depth roundtable discussion with Professor Denise Lievesley’s review of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA).
‘Arm’s-length’ government bodies (ALBs) like UKSA are periodically reviewed by the Cabinet Office to ensure accountability, efficiency and effectiveness. UKSA is currently undergoing an ALB review, led by former RSS President, Professor Denise Lievesley.
Responding to the initial consultation in July, we set out some of the broad areas where we would like to see the review focus, including:
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Asking whether UKSA would benefit from an over-arching statistical programme – one that gives users a coherent and complete overview of all official statistics and official statistics developments.
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Assessing the effectiveness of the current governance arrangements, including the functioning of parliamentary oversight.
In our consultation response, we also proposed a roundtable with Denise Lievesley to discuss some of these issues in more depth. This event was held on 1 September.
At that event, the importance of user engagement was heavily emphasised. Speakers highlighted some areas where users in government were prioritized over other types of users – for example in the production of inflation statistics. There were discussions regarding how UKSA might engage more effectively with users in the devolved nations and combined and local authorities. Finally, we also heard interesting proposals, such as updating the Code of Practice for Statistics to require active user engagement – similar to the manner required by government digital services.
The RSS’s honorary officer for national statistics, Paul Allin, is due to meet Professor Lievesley for a further discussion of the topics that have been raised.
Read our full initial consultation response here.
You can watch the video of the roundtable event here, or read a summary of the discussion here.