History
The Commission arose from an election manifesto commitment by the Labour Government whilst in Opposition to provide independent national statistics1. 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 ministers5. 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 Commission2,6. Consequently, in drawing up the new framework for national statistics1,7, the Statistics Commission was established. Its main function is to
- "...give independent, reliable and relevant advice on National Statistics to Ministers and, by so doing, to provide an additional safeguard on the quality and integrity of National Statistics."1
The White Paper charged the Commission with four principal aims6:
- To consider and comment to government on National Statistics's programme and scope of work
- To comment on National Statistics's quality assurance processes and to arrange audits where it finds concern
- To comment on the application of the code of practice for official statistics
- To prepare for the UK Parliament an annual report on National Statistics and the Commission
Read more about this topic: Statistics Commission
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“I think that Richard Nixon will go down in history as a true folk hero, who struck a vital blow to the whole diseased concept of the revered image and gave the American virtue of irreverence and skepticism back to the people.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“The history of medicine is the history of the unusual.”
—Robert M. Fresco, and Jack Arnold. Prof. Gerald Deemer (Leo G. Carroll)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)