An end to spin; Government figures.(Official statistics are to be made more trustworthy)(Office for National Statistics's governing issues)

Economist (US), The, December, 2005

It may soon become easier to trust official numbers

NOTHING Gordon Brown has done in the eight years since he became chancellor has been as widely praised as his handing over in 1997 of the power to set interest rates to the Bank of England. On November 28th he recalled those glory days in a speech at the annual conference of the Confederation of British Industry. This time, he announced that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) would be given its freedom, a move he said was modelled on his earlier liberation of the central bank. It is an ambitious comparison.

The ONS is a government department, whose output is informed by its own professionalism but reviewed before release by ministers. Its head is the "National Statistician", who lays down a...

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