Dear Tom
OSR Review of the Public Value of Devolved Public Finance statistics
Our review of the public value of devolved public finance statistics has concluded and I wanted to share with you some of the results. We were partly prompted to conduct the review by more complex devolved finance arrangements leading to the need make devolved public finance statistics more easily understood. I would like to express our gratitude to you and your colleagues for helping the review team in their work.
You will find a presentation concerning the findings from the first part of the review on the coherence and transparency of devolved public finance statistics at this link. Other outputs from the review are a blog and a YouTube interview.
You may also be interested in the results of a second phase of the review on statistics on public sector investments for devolved countries; we published the findings in a second presentation and a link can be found here. Generally, across the devolved nations we found a mixed response to introducing better public sector investment data in the different nations, with some being enthusiasts for better public sector investment data in the different nations and some who were unsure that there are clear uses for such data.
We found in respect to transparency of devolved public finance statistics that there is good coverage of data for all the devolved countries, but room for greater insights from the data. We also found that HM Treasury’s Block Grant Transparency data could offer better links to explanatory documentation about sources of funding available in the devolved countries. In December last year, when OSR statistical regulators met with you and your colleagues there was a discussion about whether HM Treasury might be interested in voluntary adopting the Code of Practice principles in respect to the Block Grant Transparency statistics. HM Treasury made such a commitment some time ago about the Treasury’s Red book. Have you given that any more thought?
I would be interested to hear from you about the Block Grant Transparency release – if could you get back to me with your thoughts by the end of October Tom, it would be really helpful. Thanks.
Yours sincerely
Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation
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