The Government's response to the consultation exercise on their Manifesto commitment to an independent national statistical service was published on 18 October. The White Paper should be found on the Office for National Statistics Web site at http://www.ons.gov.uk/data/ons/trust.pdf I should say that I have had some problems downloading this but it may be my setup. The document is pointed to from a news page http://www.ons.gov.uk/news_f.htm. If it doesn't work, I suggest contacting ONS. Greg Phillpotts Department of Health %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%