Office for National Statistics Debate
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Lord Watts
Main Page: Lord Watts (Labour - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Watts's debates with the Northern Ireland Office
(1 day, 20 hours ago)
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Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I answer for the Cabinet Office. I can inform the noble Lord that it has been shared and highlighted to the relevant government departments. If he has a specific query, I am more than happy for him to write to me, and I will respond to it.
Lord Watts (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will know how keen I am to set targets for departments and organisations. Given that we spend more every year on this service, do we not need to have some targets that we can judge its performance by?
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The noble Lord raises a very important point, especially given the concern about some of the data. I reassure noble Lords that we have faith in the ONS and that the overwhelming majority of its data is sound. Having said that, we have established, with the ONS, the economic statistics steering group, which includes representatives from the Cabinet Office, the Treasury, the Bank of England and the OBR. It meets quarterly to track its progress on being more effective with its economic data.