|
Statistical spin out of control? |
|
|
|
Ray Thomas, 22 May 2006
John Healey MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury and 'minister for government misinformtion' |
A new division is emerging in the Cabinet. On the one side
is John Healey, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who has acquired a
new role as a kind of minister for government
misinformation. On the other side is Jack Straw, now
relieved of his responsibilities as Foreign Secretary, who can
reasonably claim to the to be the Labour Party’s leading authority on
statistics.
John Healey’s role comes from his self-confessed authorship of the
Government’s Consultation Document entitled Independence for
Statistics. The Labour Party pledge to create an independent
statistical service in their 1997 election manifesto did not include
any detail. So the pledge cannot be said to have prompted high
expectations. But it is difficult to say positive things about
this Consultation Document that promises to make the pledge part of
law. The Document prints the words ‘Independence for statistics’
at the foot of each of its 35 pages, but does not offer any explanation
of the meaning of independence. Instead the Document tells
pulls wool over our eyes by pretending that statistical independence
has already been achieved.
I hope that this Consultation Document is the least coherent of the
papers produced in what should be dying stages of the Blair
regime. If there is any Government paper less
coherent than this document it will surely mark an unprecedented nadir
in the quality of government documents intended to stimulate public
discussion?
Jack Straw
Perhaps John Healy thought he could get away with the evasions of the
Consultation Document because Jack Straw was busy in the Foreign Office
in a luvvy-duvvy with Condoleezza Rice. But in the reshuffle
Straw became leader of the House. Jack Straw, surprisingly to
many, is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. And in
1995 Straw actually gave a talk to the Society about the meaning of
independence of statistics. The Consultation Document
blatantly deceives by failing to discuss or to give any reference to
Jack Straw’s paper.
The 1995 paper to the RSS shows Straw at his best. It is a
thoughtful discussion backed with a useful bit of research indicating
the growth of the statistical content of newspaper
articles. Straws’ paper is not one to agree or disagree
with. Its strength is that it spells out the
issues. A statistical service independent of the government
of the day would have to be staffed by public servants not civil
servants. It would be serve the needs of the public,
Parliament and government - in that order. The statistical
service would be responsible to, and have its budget controlled by, a
Committee of Parliament _ not the Government of the day.
Jack Straw’s paper has no precedent. It is the only
substantial paper ever written by a leading politician on the
government of statistics. A Consultation Document on an
independent statistical service without any reference to Jack Straw’s
ideas is a snub to the electorate, to the Labour Party, and to Jack
Straw.
Descriptions of society
Straw’s paper took for granted that official statistics give only a
partial view of society. A basic contribution by the
Straw’s paper was to distinguish the statistical needs of governments,
and the Government of the day, from those of the public.
These distinctions are denied by the Consultation Document.
The Consultation Document emphasises that the aim of National
Statistics is to provide "an accurate, up-to-date, comprehensive and
meaningful description of society". But the Document has a
totalitarian flavour in failing to acknowledge that alternative
descriptions might exist. It is implicit in the
Consultation Document that National Statistics would give a picture for
the Government of the day and the public alike.
The Consultation Document refers to statistics as a public good, but
there is not a glimmer of recognition that the public might have
different view of what constitutes a comprehensive description of
society from that given by official statistics. The
Document seems to demonstrate that the Government have become so
immersed in spin that they have become unaware of the existence of
their own spin and that the Treasury has lost the ability to
distinguish between the image they work to create and reality.
Government entwinement with statistics
It cannot be denied that there have been extensive public discussions
about statistics since 1997. A number of large tomes have been
published by the Office for National Statistics and by the Statistics
Council. A Framework for National Statistics was drawn up
and the existing Code of Practice massively extended. But
these developments have been largely concerned with consolidating a
relationship between professional statisticians, represented by the
Royal Statistical Society, and the Government Statistical
Service.
Any progress towards an independent service as defined by Jack Straw is
difficult to detect. The general trend over the period since 1997
has been in the opposite direction. Official statistics and the
Government become more closely intertwined. The
setting of statistical targets has become automatic and routine – a
standard and expected part of managerialism in the public
sector. Under Labour statistical targets approved by
Government have obtruded on the daily lives of citizens more than ever
before.
A new twist was the establishment within the Office for National
Statistics of a unit for measuring the output of government
services. The Government is worried that increased
expenditure in areas such as health services is not counted as a
benefit in economic statistics. The Centre for Measurement
of Government Activity is intended to remedy this omission by making
estimates of the value of the benefits of public services. So
official statistics tell citizens not just about their work performance
but also about how much they are better off they are as a result of the
activity of the Government.
Revival of interest
It had seemed that the Government and the Labour Party wanted to forget
about the issue of independence. The Office for National
Statistics was not mentioned in the leaflet ‘300 gains from our Labour
Government’ that was distributed to party members early in 2004.
Nor was the ONS mentioned in the list of 50 top achievements published in
October 2005.
It was therefore a slight surprise to learn from Gordon Brown that the
Government had not forgotten about the idea of an independent
service. The revival of the idea of independence may be in
anticipation of a leadership contest. Gordon Brown, with
statistical justification, claims that under his leadership Britain has
enjoyed a longer period of continuous period of economic growth than
ever previously recorded. It may be that he would also like
to claim that the statistics cannot be questioned because they are
produced independently of his government?
The Consultation Document attempts to reify its subject matter by
repetition of the word independence and by discussion using laudatory
words and phrases – such as code of conduct, integrity, and
quality _ that have been associated with the consolidation of the
Government Statistical Service and professional
statisticians. But this consolidation does not deal with
the wisdom expressed in Jack Straw’s paper.
Official statistics give a picture of reality. If there is no
means of challenging that picture we are institutionalizing spin and
taking a step towards an Orwellian society. Will Jack
Straw, now in a position of power, assert the excellent ideas he put
forward when he was in opposition?
Nor does the consolidation of the GSS with professional statisticians
and the deal with falling trust in statistics and in the
Government. I hope to come back to that topic next week.
Ray Thomas is Research Fellow in Official Statistics in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University in Milton Keynes.
|
Events Calendar