Statistics Commission


The Statistics Commission was a non-departmental public body established in June 2000 by the UK Government to oversee the work of the Office for National Statistics.
Its chairman was Professor David Rhind who succeeded the first chairman, Sir John Kingman, in May 2003. Although it was non-departmental, the commission was funded by grant-in-aid from the Treasury. Following the implementation of the Statistics & Registration Services Act 2007, the commission was abolished. Its functions were to be taken over and considerably enhanced by the UK Statistics Authority, whose powers began on 1 April 2008 under the chairmanship of Sir Michael Scholar. Professor Rhind is among the non-executive members of the new authority, to which the ONS is accountable. This contrasts with the duties of the previous Commission which were limited to reporting, observing and criticizing ONS while it, until 2008, has been publicly accountable via a Treasury minister.

History

The Commission arose from an election manifesto commitment by the Labour Government whilst in Opposition to provide independent national statistics. The commitment was implemented by the Government first publishing a Green Paper in 1998 inviting consultation which offered four options for overseeing the production of statistics for ministers. The subsequent white paper revealed that, of those four options, the one which received significantly more support than the others was the establishment of a Commission Consequently, in drawing up the new framework for national statistics, the Statistics Commission was established. Its main function is to
The white paper charged the commission with four principal aims:
The last commissioners were:
The chief executive was Richard Alldritt