Scottish Government

ANNEX B: SPECIFIC DEVOLVED PROVISIONS IN THE ACT

• Board Membership - one non-executive member of the board of the UK Statistics Authority is to be appointed after consulting Scottish Ministers. This consultation was carried out before the seven non-executive directors of the Authority were appointed in January 2008.¹⁷
• Consultation on the Code - the UK Statistics Authority must consult Scottish Ministers on the preparation or revision of the Code of Practice for Statistics. A public consultation on the Code of Practice for Statistics will be launched by the Authority in due course.
• Consultation on the Board's Principles and Procedures - the UK Statistics Authority must consult Scottish Ministers on the preparation or revision of the statement of their principles and procedures with regards to assessment. A public consultation on the Principles and Procedures for Assessment will be launched by the Authority in due course.
• Designation of statistics as National Statistics - the UK Statistics Authority must assess devolved Scottish Official Statistics as National Statistics when requested to do so by Scottish Ministers.
• Pre-release access for Ministers - Scottish Ministers will decide on the rules and principles for access to Scottish Official Statistics in their final form - to be set out in subordinate legislation. A draft Pre-release Access Order for Scotland is presented at Annex C.
• Production of Statistics - the UK Statistics Authority must obtain the consent of Scottish Ministers before producing or publishing statistics on devolved matters in Scotland. The Office for National Statistics (the Authority's executive office) has blanket consent to produce and publish Scottish devolved statistics until 30 June 2008. A more detailed agreement is currently being prepared by the Chief Statisticians of the Devolved Administrations and the National Statistician.
• Reports - the UK Statistics Authority must lay an annual report before the Scottish Parliament and may lay a separate annual report (and any other report it sees fit). It is for Scottish Parliament to decide how it will manage this business. The Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament has placed the scrutiny of the Authority in its annual work plan, and it seems likely that Subject Committees will get involved with reports on relevant statistics.
• Directions - Scottish Ministers can, with consent of the Chancellor of Exchequer, give the UK Statistics Authority directions to remedy any failure in its objective or functions relating to statistics on devolved matters.
• Sharing of information - Scottish Ministers can authorise Scottish public authorities to share with the UK Statistics Authority information which would otherwise be prohibited (except as prohibited by data protection and human rights legislation) - and authorise the Authority to disclose to Scottish public authorities information which it has obtained. A Government Statistical Service advisory group has been considering how these new powers might be best used in the future.