A data collective can strengthen our statistical system
Most economists remember Margaret Thatcher as a leader who ushered a new era of business-friendly economic policies in the 1980s. Statisticians remember her as the politician who wreaked havoc on a world-class statistical system. Soon after becoming the UK’s prime minister, Thatcher appointed a Marks & Spencer executive to review the country’s statistical system.
In his 1981 report, Derek Rayner argued that statistical information should primarily address the needs of government officials rather than citizens. The Rayner review led to deep cuts in the survey wing of the government’s statistical service, limiting the range of government data available to the public. The growing opacity around official statistics created the grounds for statistical manipulation.
Between 1979 and 1996, the UK government adjusted the definition of unemployment no less than 31 times, invariably to show a lower rate of unemployment, historian Eric J. Evans wrote in Thatcher and Thatcherism. As public trust in official statistics declined, the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) began demanding reforms.
Through the 1990s and 2000s, the RSS lobbied hard to insulate statistical activities from political pressures, and institute independent reviews of statistical products. The government responded by providing greater powers to the UK’s central statistical office in the early 1990s. A code of practice for official statisticians was published in 1995.
A 1998 green paper of the UK government finally announced the death of the Rayner doctrine, noting that official statistics must serve the needs of ordinary citizens. Public confidence in official statistics “has for too long been clouded by concerns about their integrity," it acknowledged. The review
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