Ray,
I think you are being too harsh (although it is true that the press
notices give a ridiculous small amount of information).
What sort of organisation would meet your definition of "independent of
the government"?
Is the BBC independent of the government?
Is the Competition Commission?
Is the Bank of England ?
Is NICE or NICHE (National Institute for Clinical (and Health?)
Excellence - sorry I have forgotten its full title and acronym).
Alternatively, what would the ONS need to do to meet your standards of
independence?
Although I am not completely familiar with the civil service code, my
understanding is as follow: the current status of the ONS means that if
the Treasury Minister in charge gave a direct instruction to civil
servants in the ONS, they would have to comply or resign, just like
civil servants would in any other central government department. The
wording of the press release strongly suggests to me that this will no
longer be the case. So politicians will not be able to interfere with
what the ONS does.
Ultimately, politicians will be able to interfere with the funding of
the ONS: is that your criticism?
regards, Mike
R.Thomas wrote:
R.Thomas wrote:
> The situation with regard to the independence of the ONS seems getting more and more farcical.
>
> In what sense is a body reporting to the Treasury independent of the Government? Another component of the farce is that the ONS has set up a unit to measure output of government policies and services. So the ONS measures output and what counts as output, and the Treasury controls the financial input of the ONS. All concerned are civil servants whose status and prošpects are determined by the government of the day.
>
> It appears that repetition of the word 'independence' is intended to convince us of the equivalent of black=white.
>
> So where is the 'news' in this?
>
> Ray Thomas
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: email list for Radical Statistics on behalf of Robin Rice
> Sent: Mon 11/28/2005 4:57 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Cc:
> Subject: News: full independence for Office of National Statistics
> Did folks know this was in the works? There's a press release today linked
> from the NS home page, at
> http://www.nationalstatistics.org.uk/pdfdir/fin1105.pdf
>
> Also, a BBC item here:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4477516.stm
> Chancellor Gordon Brown has announced that the Office for National
> Statistics will be made independent of government, in a speech at the CBI's
> conference.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Robin Rice
> Data Librarian
> EDINA and University Data Library
> http://datalib.ed.ac.uk/
> 0131 651 1431
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
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--
Mike Brewer
Programme Director, Direct Tax and Welfare sector
Institute for Fiscal Studies (www.ifs.org.uk)
Tel: +44 (0)20 7291 4800
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