Dear Consultee
CONSULTATION ON IMPROVING STATISTICAL SERVICES IN SCOTLAND
You are invited to comment on the enclosed consultation paper published today. The paper outlines the Scottish Executive's proposals to improve statistical services in Scotland.
Proposed improvements
The Statistics and Registration Service Bill, which was introduced in the House of Commons on 21 November 2006 1, will provide for the creation of a new Statistics Board, operating at arms-length from Ministers as a non-Ministerial department, responsible for promoting and safeguarding the quality and comprehensiveness of official statistics. The Board will be responsible for overseeing the statistical production activities currently undertaken by the Office for National Statistics ( ONS), as well as scrutiny across all official statistics, including through the independent setting of statistical standards in a Code of Practice, and independent assessment of National Statistics against those standards.
Scottish Ministers intend that the "scrutiny and standards" aspect of the Bill should be extended to Scotland, and have proposed this to Parliament through a Legislative Consent Motion ( LCM) 2.
Scotland's inclusion in the relevant elements of the Bill will help improve public confidence in and accessibility to government statistics. However, there is more that can be done, outside of the Bill, to improve statistical services in Scotland.
We would appreciate your views both on the way proposed for the UK Bill in Scotland and on the other proposals contained in the paper.
Responding to this consultation
There are two response questionnaires enclosed with the paper - Annex A for your comments on the legislation and Annex B for your views on the other proposals.
We are inviting written responses to this consultation by Tuesday 9 January 2007 for Annex A on the legislation and by Monday 5 March 2007 for Annex B on the other proposals. This consultation will run for 12 weeks from 11 December 2006 to 5 March 2007. However, comments on the legislation (Annex A) must be submitted by the 9 January 2007 because your comments are needed to inform the LCM discussions in Parliament, which are likely to take place in January 2007.
Please send your response to: marina.hughes@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or
Marina Hughes
Scottish Executive
3W.R
St Andrew's House
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG
Consultation process
This consultation, and all other Scottish Executive consultation exercises, can be viewed online on the consultation web pages of the Scottish Executive website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations . You can telephone Freephone 0800 77 1234 to find out where your nearest public internet access point is.
The Scottish Executive now has an email alert system for consultations (SEconsult: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/consultations/seconsult.aspx ). This system allows stakeholder individuals and organisations to register and receive a weekly email containing details of all new consultations (including web links). SEconsult complements, but in no way replaces SE distribution lists, and is designed to allow stakeholders to keep up to date with all SE consultation activity, and therefore be alerted at the earliest opportunity to those of most interest. We would encourage you to register.
Handling your response
All respondents should be aware that the Scottish Executive is subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 and would therefore have to consider any request made to it under the Act for information relating to responses made to this consultation exercise.
We need to know how you wish your response to be handled and, in particular, whether you are happy for your response to be made public. Please complete and return the Respondent Information Form ( Annex C) enclosed with this consultation paper as this will ensure that we treat your response appropriately. If you ask for your response not to be published we will regard it as confidential, and we will treat it accordingly.
Where respondents have given permission for their response to be made public, these will be made available to the public in the Scottish Executive Library and on the SE consultation web pages shortly after the closing date. We will check all responses where agreement to publish has been given for any potentially defamatory material before logging them in the library. You can make arrangements to view responses by contacting the SE Library on 0131 244 4565. Responses can be copied and sent to you, but a charge may be made for this service.
What happens next?
Following the closing date, all responses will be analysed and considered along with any other available evidence to help the Parliament to reach a decision on the LCM and to shape the other proposals. We will issue a report on this consultation process.
Comments and complaints
If you have any comments about how this consultation exercise has been conducted, please send them to me.
Yours sincerely
Rob Wishart
Chief Statistician