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The Chief Statistician and Heads of Profession
41. The Chief Statistician in the Scottish Government has overall responsibility for the implementation and coordination of Official Statistics standards in the Scottish Administration. In particular the Chief Statistician is responsible for the following in consultation with the other Heads of Profession for statistics:
(a) Setting the planning framework for Scottish Official Statistics and producing the Scottish Statistics Plan.
(b) Establishing and maintaining the overall arrangements for involving users and providers.
(c) Ensuring adherence to the National Statistics Code and resolving any issues concerning the interpretation and application of the Code in Scotland.
(d) Setting any common standards for statistical classifications and methods, in collaboration with other Heads of Profession in Scotland, Chief Statisticians in other devolved administrations and the National Statistician.
(e) Final decisions on interpretation of standards for data confidentiality.
(f) Reporting to Parliament on Official Statistics performance.
42. Heads of Profession are appointed for all other Scottish producers of official statistics (ISD, GROS) and the Chief Statistician acts as Head of Profession for all Scottish Government Directorates and Executive agencies.
43. Heads of Profession are responsible for
(a) The format, content and timing of statistical releases. This includes handling revisions.
(b) Promoting compliance with the National Statistics Code.
(c) Reporting on Official Statistics performance, reporting breaches of the Code and referring matters related to professional integrity to the National Statistician or UK Statistics Authority, after consulting with the Chief Statistician.
(d) Producing a plan for approval by Scottish Ministers as part of the Scottish Government Statistics planning framework and contributing to any reporting by the Chief Statistician.
(e) Advising Ministers on the scope of statistics produced and making decisions within the overall resources available subject to public consultation and Parliamentary scrutiny.
(f) User and provider involvement, within the overall Scottish framework.
(g) Ensuring and developing the professional competence of their staff.
(h) Deciding methodologies and statistical classifications within any Scottish Government framework, which is in turn informed by UK and international standards.
(i) Promoting the professional independence of their organisation's statistical work, the quality of its outputs and the integrity and validity of its statistics and commentary.
(j) Setting and implementing standards for data confidentiality, and other requirements for data management and retention consistent with National Statistics principles.
44. In practice much of the decision making on a day to day basis is delegated to senior statistical staff and the role of the Head of Profession is to set the policy framework and intervene where necessary.
Statistical staff
45. Within the above set of responsibilities the production of statistics is carried out by
(a) Professional statisticians who are members of the Government Statistical Service or staff who meet GSS standards of professional competence and who are professionally accountable to a Statistics Head of Profession.
(b) Other staff who are responsible to the above.
(c) Other staff (e.g. researchers) who for the purposes of statistical production comply with the Code of Practice/Conduct and whose compliance with the Code is supervised by the Head of Profession for Statistics.
Senior management
46. All statisticians are responsible to other senior managers within their line management structures, and ultimately responsible to the Permanent Secretary in the Scottish Government.
47. In Scottish Government Directorates, most statisticians work within Analytical Services Divisions alongside social researchers and economists. They are responsible on a day to day basis through their line management to a Deputy Director (Analytical Services) within each Directorate. This integration of statisticians with other analysts working closely with policy staff is an important strength of the Scottish Government statistical set-up.
48. Heads of Analytical Services Divisions are responsible for
(a) the quality and scope of statistics in their area, subject to agreement/endorsement by the Chief Statistician,
(b) plans, priorities and consultation subject to consultation with the Chief Statistician.
49. The Chief Statistician is responsible to the Director of Corporate Analytical Services who ensures co-ordination and collaboration between the analytical professions and between Directorates. Similarly the Chief Statistician works closely with the Chief Economic Adviser and Chief Researcher, and where appropriate the application of statistical standards and methods is agreed with them.
50. In all of the above Heads of Analytical Services Divisions and other senior professionals will work within the Code of Practice and will for the above purposes be considered as part of the statistical production process.
51. A smaller number of statisticians are responsible to other senior managers. This occurs where the statistics are produced primarily to support management processes though they are also made public. These line managers are also responsible to Ministers for policy advice and/or are accountable for policy delivery. So whilst they may continue to ensure that statistical methodologies and classifications meet policy requirements and that the format, content or timing of published statistics are appropriate to their needs, the Chief Statistician has the right to make any final decision on any Official Statistics.
52. As Head of Profession for NHS, the Director of ISD, reports to Chief Executive, NHS National Services Scotland, and is a member of the NHS Board. All NHS Boards are directly accountable to Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, and Chief Executives report to Director-General Health and Chief Executive NHS Scotland.
Ministers
53. A Minister in the Scottish Government is designated as Minister for statistics. He/she is responsible for
(a) maintaining and developing the overall arrangements for Official statistics and National Statistics taking account of international standards and principles
(b) acting on behalf of Scottish Ministers in relation to functions specified in the Statistics & Registration Service Act 2007 i.e.
- Board (UK Statistics Authority) Membership - the appointment of one non-executive member of the Board after consulting Scottish Ministers.
- Consultation on Code - the UK Statistics Authority must consult Scottish Ministers on the preparation or revision of the Code of Practice for Statistics.
- Designation of statistics as National Statistics - the UK Statistics Authority must assess statistics on devolved matters as National Statistics when requested to do so by Scottish Ministers.
- Pre-release access for Ministers - Scottish Ministers will decide on the rules and principles for access to Scottish devolved statistics; these are set out in the Parliamentary Order on pre-release. This means access to Official Statistics in their final form prior to publication.
- Consultation on the Board's Principles and Procedures - the UK Statistics Authority must consult Scottish Ministers on the preparation or revision of the statement of their principles and procedures with regards to assessment.
- Production of Statistics - the UK Statistics Authority must obtain the consent of Scottish Ministers before producing or publishing statistics on devolved matters.
- Directions - Scottish Ministers can, with consent of Chancellor of Exchequer, give the UK Statistics Authority directions to remedy any failure in its objective or functions relating to statistics on devolved matters.
- Sharing of information - Scottish Ministers can authorise Scottish public authorities to share with the UK Statistics Authority information which would otherwise be prohibited (except under data protection and human rights legislation), authorise the UK Statistics Authority to use the information and to disclose to Scottish public authorities information which it has obtained from Whitehall departments.
5 4. All Ministers are responsible for the following in relation to statistics in their own portfolios
(a) approving the scope and coverage of Official Statistics produced and the resources devoted to the production of such statistics.
(b) deciding which Official Statistics should be put forward as National Statistics
55. In relation to 54 (a) above
(a) Decisions on these matters will be delegated generally as far as possible to the professional statistical service.
(b) The Chief Statistician and Heads of Profession have authority to make day to day decisions on priorities and to produce such information and analysis as they consider necessary within existing resources.
(c) All decisions including those by Ministers and Senior Management on their behalf which determine what is produced, and decisions by the Chief Statistician and Heads of Profession will be subject to consultation including with users, and scrutiny by Parliament.
56. As noted earlier a key principle of the Code and international standards is that Ministers do not make decisions on
(a) the format, content or timing of statistics releases
(b) methodologies and statistical classifications.
57. As key users, they and staff advising them are entitled to comment on any aspect of the above as is any other user. In recognising their influence and the risk that any comments could be construed as exerting an undue influence over the final decision the following safeguards will be put in place
(a) Ministers will raise such matters through the Head of Profession or other statisticians with delegated authority.
(b) Any correspondence or discussion on such matters will be open to scrutiny by the UK Statistics Authority and others even where it may be exempt information under the Freedom of Information Act.
58. Beyond the above, and other than as specified in the Statistics & Registration Service Act 2007, all other decisions on statistics produced by or for Scottish Government Directorates (other than GROS) are delegated by Ministers to the Chief Statistician or Heads of Profession. This includes delegation of the functions of the "person responsible" set out in the Pre-Release Access to Statistics Order to the Chief Statistician and Heads of Profession.
The Scottish Parliament
59. The Finance Committee of the Parliament has included general statistics matters in its work programme. Statistics on particular topics are the subject of consideration by other Committees.
60. The involvement of Parliament in the scrutiny of Official Statistics will be supported. Parliament will be given direct access to senior statistical staff to answer on matters which are delegated to them. The Statistics & Registration Service Act 2007 requires the UK Statistics Authority to lay an annual report before the Scottish Parliament and any other report it sees fit.
The UK Statistics Authority
61. The UK Statistics Authority is responsible for the functions specified in the Statistics & Registration Service Act 2007, principally
(a) monitoring the production and publication of Official Statistics including the quality, practices and comprehensiveness
(b) reporting on the above including directly to Parliament
(c) developing and maintaining definitions, methodologies, classifications and standards for Official Statistics and promoting their use
(d) issuing guidance and advice in relation to the above
(e) producing a Code of Practice for Official Statistics in consultation with Scottish Ministers
(f) assessing and designating Official Statistics as National Statistics following a request by Scottish Ministers
(g) notifying Scottish Ministers if considers that other Official Statistics should be designated as National Statistics
(h) specified powers to assist data sharing.
The UK National Statistician
62. The UK National Statistician will in future act on behalf of the UK Statistics Authority in relation to many issues. He/she will also act in accordance with Code of Practice which will in effect define his/her role in relation to Scottish statistics. There may be an additional Code of Conduct which will also cover the National Statistician's role.
63. The UK National Statistician is head of the Government Statistical Service, and sets professional standards and arrangements to support it. The UK National Statistician is not operationally responsible for any Scottish Official Statistics.
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