Stats boss quits as minister says new leadership needed

Sir Robert Chote has resigned as the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, which is the body responsible for the care of the troubled office for National Statistics (ONS).

Earlier this year, a high-intensive government review stated that ONS had “deep sitting” issues that required to deal with.

Bank of England has also criticized the agency for the credibility of its job market data, which the central bank decides whether to increase or cut interest rates.

Announcing the resignation of Sir Robert, Cabinet Office Minister Pat McFaden said “the new leadership was important” “underlines the decision making to address the challenges identified and to restore rapid confidence in the figures produced by ONS.

In a letter sent to the Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs of Parliament, Catherine Little, the most senior civil servant at the cabinet office, said that a new chair would be “in more reliable condition” to work on the conclusions of the investigation.

Sir Robert, who joined the Statistics Authority of the UK in 2022, will now hold a position as the chairman of Trinity College, Oxford in September.

A source in a senior cabinet office forced the government to go to Sir Robert and said that it is its choice to leave, but said “if you do not have integrity, it was difficult to make an effective government policy”.

He said that “If we cannot know the true picture then it is more difficult to make a policy, so we are getting it with fixing it”.

This is the second senior resignation in recent months, when Sir Ian Diamond stepped into ONS as a national statistician in May due to health reasons.

The ONs collect and publish data used by the government to take policy decisions in areas including the state’s benefits, housing, migration and crime.

In April, the government asked former senior civil servant Sir Robert Devex to investigate ONS after a series of issues.

In his latter report, Sir Robert concluded that “the best promoted problems with the main economic figures are ONS’s results of”, especially “options made on top of ONS over the years.”

He cited “interested in new”, in which the main economic data was given attention to the “less exciting but important task” that was good enough to direct quality decisions.

Responding to the review, acting National Statisticalist Emma Rourke said that she welcomed the report and “fully accepted the issues he has exposed”.