Memorandum to the Public Administration Select Committee

The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 received Royal Assent on 26 July 2007 and introduced substantial reforms to the official statistical system across the whole of the UK and setting it in statute for the first time. The major stakeholders were consulted on the effectiveness of the Act and overall they felt the Act is meeting its original aims and objectives. There were some areas where it was felt further reforms could strengthen the Act's aims. These include: considering the case for widening the data sharing powers in the Act; managing and where possible minimising the costs incurred by the producers of official statistics in complying with the Code of practice; whether more needs to be done to distinguish official statistics from those that are not; whether more needs to be done to strengthen the internal separation between the statistics producer and regulator roles of the UK Statistics Authority; and how to further raise the profile of the Authority.