Ed Humpherson, Director General for Regulation, Office for Statistics Regulation to Roger Halliday, Chief Statistician & Head of Performance, Scottish Government

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Dear Roger,

I am writing to you to recognise the recent collaboration between the Scottish Government and the Office for Statistics Regulation in organising and delivering a joint event for Arm’s Length Bodies in Scotland. The event, which aimed to explain and explore what it means to be an official statistics producer, was well attended and I understand provoked much useful discussion. I am pleased that it was made open to both existing official statistics producers and also to bodies that might be interested in becoming producers in the future.

I welcome the conversations that we have had previously around listing additional bodies as official statistics producers through Official Statistics (Scotland) Amendment Orders. I am pleased to hear that the Scottish Government is planning to give new bodies the opportunity to be listed in the Order and that you are currently considering which would be most appropriate to be added. It will be particularly important to ensure arrangements are in place for the new body Public Health Scotland which will come into being in 2019, as well as bodies who have taken over the production of statistics previously released by official statistics producers.

I am keen to keep up to date with your progress in this matter and would like to offer the support of the Office for Statistics Regulation in this process where that may be helpful to you.

Your sincerely,

Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation