Bernard Jenkin MP, who chairs the Public Administration Select Committee, has decided to investigate the process of appointing the next chair of the UK Statistics Authority, and how much he/she is being paid.
 
At the end of an evidence session on 3 March (which I’m sorry to say I have only just got round to listening to) he told Cabinet Office minister Frances Maude and Cabinet Office Secretary Gus O’Donnell that he would be putting out a call for evidence on the subject. This hasn’t appeared yet but I understand it will do shortly.
 
The session is well worth watching, with the statistically-relevant passages coming towards the end. Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West, gives Mr Maude and Sir Gus a torrid time, no doubt reflecting the fact that he represents in Parliament the home of the ONS (or at least made more interesting by the knowledge that he does).
 
Mr Flynn has little time for open data, claiming that the government is running away from professional standards by allowing such “chaotic” masses of undigested stuff to appear. Mr Maude acknowledged that it was “untidy” but drew the line at chaotic. Lots of people found it interesting and useful, and if there were errors, as there probably were, then time would expose them. He distinguished between this kind of data, where “speed trumps accuracy” and proper statistics, where the opposite is true.
 
Sir Gus (who, according to Michael Cockerell’s current BBC 4 TV series on Whitehall,  signs his letters GoD) concurred. Mr Flynn’s line of questioning didn’t appear to gain much traction with the rest of the committee, entertaining as it was.
 
But he and Chairman Bernard Jenkin MP were in agreement over what they see as an insult to statistics and to Sir Michael Scholar over the appointment of his successor. Sir Michael started the job on £150,000 a year for three days a week, reduced to £100,000 for two days after the new government took office, and now he has reached the end of his time, his job is being advertised at £57,000, again for two days a week.
 
Mr Maude said Sir Michael had requested a reduction in days worked (not my understanding, or that of Mr Jenkin) and that £57,000 a year for two days a week was the same as the Prime Minister earned, pro rata. He had no concerns that the diminished rations would discourage good applicants, and flatly denied it was a snub to the UKSA because Sir Michael had got the civil servants’ backs up.
 
“We shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking you calibrate the importance of a job by the salary attached to it” said Mr Maude. As if we’d fall into that trap!
 
That’s easy enough to say if you belong to a cabinet of millionaires, said Mr Flynn. “It’s a downgrading of the job, of course you’ll get people who think twice about applying. How many applicants have you had?” Mr Maude replied: “I haven’t the slightest idea”, but as the ad had appeared in the Sunday Times only five days before, that wasn’t surprising. Sir Gus said that most people who apply for such jobs do so at the end of the application period.
 
Mr Flynn warned that they had better not appoint a “Government patsy” and there were questions about the selection process. I understand that the appointment is due to be made by a committee comprising Sir Gus,  Sir Nicholas Macpherson, Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, Valerie Isham, President of the Royal Statistical Society, and an observer from the Government Appointments Service, which does sound rather mandarin-heavy.
 
Members of the committee suggested they would like a bigger say. Mr Maude said he understood the arguments, but made no promises. Sir Gus denied accusations that the selection was set up to appoint a “retread” civil servant, but added that Sir Michael (who could be so described) had done a “tremendous job”.  Everyone’s a member of your fan club when retirement beckons.
 
Make no mistake: Sir Michael has done a fine job. But it would be an untruth to claim that Whitehall has fallen over itself to acknowledge it, until now.
 
However, before we all rush off with the idea that statistics is being picked on, it might be worth looking at the data. A number of senior non-executive chairmanships are open to applicants at the moment, and cluster around the same salary range.
 
For example, the Chair of the NHS Commissioning Board (three days a week, London and Leeds) is being offered £63,000, the chair of the Independent Police Complaints Authority (three days a week) £60,000, and the new UKSA chair £57,000 (two days). It’s hard to argue that this admittedly small sample provides any evidence of discrimination against statistics.
 
And as GoD sagely remarked during the hearing, Sir Michael had the job of setting the UKSA up from scratch, while his successor can take over a going concern. There's quite a difference.