The Scottish Government has flatly rejected any change in pre-release access to statistics, describing the arguments of the UK Statistics Authority in favour of such a change as specious.
 
Scotland allows selected people to see forthcoming statistics five days in advance, a far longer period than the 24 hours that operates in England. The authority would like to see a standardised period of only three hours pre-release, to counter the perception that ministers can “spin” the presentation of statistics if given sufficient time, and the advantage access gives to incumbent governments over their opponents who are denied an early peek.
 
“Not us, Guv” sums up the response of the Scottish Government to these proposals. Giving ministers five days notice has not damaged public trust, has not turned official statisticians into ministers’ playthings, and fails to take account of the fact that the Scottish Official Statistics Order (2008) specifically forbids recipients from taking political advantage, it says.
 
The response has been published by the Scottish Government as a review which concludes: “The Scottish Government does not propose to change its policy on pre-release access and no alterations are required to the Pre-Release Access to Official Statistics (Scotland) Order 2008.”
 
Central to the review’s arguments is a refusal to accept any link between pre-release access arrangements and public trust in statistics. The most recent UK-wide survey, Public Confidence in Official Statistics 2009, shows no improvement in the dismal rating citizens give to the political impartiality of official statistics, and there is no separate survey showing that opinion in Scotland differs. (The sample questioned in the national survey is too small for regional breakdowns to be made.)
 
But the review suggests that trust in statistics is linked more strongly to trust in government than it is to any pre-release arrangements. Scottish Government statisticians, it says, have taken steps to make it clear that they are responsible for the figures, not ministers. The Scottish Government is disappointed, says Jim Mather MSP, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, in a letter to Sir Michael Scholar, chair of the authority, at the “unfounded and unevidenced assertions that the authority makes regarding the integrity of professional Government statisticians”.
 
This tetchy response appears to relate to the suggestion in the authority’s proposals that statisticians alert to the political needs of ministers may respond by “saying no more in their statistical commentaries than is absolutely necessary, or perhaps trying to find something to say that will play well in the department”. Not in Scotland, the review asserts.
 
“These insinuations are unsupported by any evidence and indeed are unrecognisable in terms of what happens in practice within Scottish Government” it says.
 
The basic argument advanced in favour of the five-day window is that it gives time to brief ministers so that they can respond in an informed way when the statistics are published. It has not led to any breaches beyond minor technical ones, the review says. Unlike in England, journalists are not among those given early access in Scotland.
 
Replying to Mr Mather, Sir Michael says that policy in Scotland is up to the Scots, but it will not have escaped their notice that it is at odds with the authority, the Cabinet Office and Westminster Government, the Treasury Committee, and the Royal Statistical Society. He might have added the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Statistics.
 
He points out that the Scottish Government policy “sits uncomfortably” with two of the principles of the Code of Practice on Official Statistics: that statistics should be released as soon as they are ready, and made equally available to all who wish to make use of them.
 
“That said, we seem to have taken the debate as far as we can. You do not accept our arguments and we do not accept yours, and the relative merits of the Scottish Government’s report and that of the Statistics Authority will be for others to judge” Sir Michael says. No reflection was intended on the integrity of Scottish statisticians in the remarks about how they might be inhibited against saying things seen as unhelpful by their employers.
 
It’s possible, of course, that Scottish statisticians have never been subject to political manipulation, as the review asserts. It’s also possible there is a consensus view in Scotland that the present arrangements are working well, and that changing them would have no beneficial effect on public confidence. It’s even possible that forbidding ministers to take advantage of pre-release access actually stops them doing so.
 
And it’s almost certainly more than possible that by trying to persuade the Scottish Government to change a policy within its discretion on the basis of arguments assembled in London, the authority was on a hiding to nothing.