The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated October 2008:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question concerning what consultation the Office for National Statistics had with Government departments before the Office's revised methodology for allocating international migrants to regions and local authority areas was published. (227234)
Over a significant period of time prior to implementation, ONS officials had regular discussions with the key Departmental users of population and migration statistics, specifically:
The Department for Communities and Local Government, given their role with local grant funding;
The Department of Health, including representation on the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) of the Advisory Committee for Resource Allocation (ACRA); and
The devolved administrations.
Also, at each stage in the development and implementation of the improved methodology, we kept government departments, local authorities and other users informed. Papers were submitted for discussion at the regular meetings held with the population sub-group of Central and Local Information Partnership (CLIP). Membership of CLIP includes representatives from Government departments, as well as from local government. The proposed new methodology was first discussed by CLIP in April 2006 prior to the announcement, in August 2006, of plans to implement the revised methods and the publication of indicative figures and explanatory papers in April 2007. Presentations of the methods were made at conferences and seminars, in particular British Society of Population Studies.
ONS is now leading a cross-departmental programme of work to improve migration and population statistics that has been in place since April 2008. We liaise closely with other government departments who are members of a steering group overseeing this work. The Local Government Association is also represented on the steering group.
Through this, a series of working groups that meet regularly, seminars and workshops that are arranged to engage local stakeholders, ONS continues to liaise closely with central and local Government on the improving migration statistics programme.