Dear Tom

CONFIRMATION OF NATIONAL STATISTICS DESIGNATION FOR PUBLIC EXPENDITURE STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: COUNTRY AND REGIONAL ANALYSIS STATISTICS

We have reviewed the actions that you and your team have taken to address the requirements in Assessment Report number 343: Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis: Country and Regional Analysis.

On behalf of the Board of the UK Statistics Authority, I am pleased to confirm designation of National Statistics status for HM Treasury’s Public Expenditure Statistical Analysis: Country and Regional Analysis (CRA).

During this assessment you and the rest of the statistics team in HM Treasury involved in implementing the enhancements arising from the assessment have shown enthusiasm and commitment to improving the trustworthiness, quality and value of these statistics. We welcome particularly the improvements the team has made to widen the value of these statistics beyond meeting the needs of users beyond policy users alone, and ensuring that all users are at the centre of statistical production. There has been a real effort to present the statistics clearly and provide authoritative insights which we are sure will better serve the public good. We particularly appreciate the efforts that you and senior officials have gone to review the list of recipients of the statistics in their final form ahead of their publication and taken steps to keep this to a minimum. We see this initiative as making a very important contribution towards more equal access to, and the orderly release of, the CRA statistics.

We have included more detail about our judgement in an annex to this letter. I, or my team, would be very happy to talk you or your colleagues through any aspects of this letter or Code compliance more generally.

National Statistics status means that official statistics meet the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and value and is something to be celebrated. We were pleased to observe that you included details in the latest issue of the CRA statistics, CRA 2019, of the date that these statistics were first designated as National Statistics and the date of this most recent assessment of the statistics.

Yours sincerely

Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation

 

Related Links:

Assessment Report 343: Statistics on Government Spending: Country and Regional Analysis