'Fiddled figures' row intensifies

THE Government has come under renewed fire for 'fiddling figures' after it refused demands from the statistics watchdog to adopt new safeguards to prevent it spinning data.

Len Cook, head of the Office for National Statistics, dismissed the Statistics Commission's suggestion to make the ONS's workings more transparent following a series of embarrassing statistical blunders.

The news also follows the revelation that, under Treasury pressure, the ONS will dramatically rewrite the Government's borrowing figures next month, helping Chancellor Gordon Brown to meet his borrowing rules.

In a letter to the Commission's chairman Professor David Rhind, Cook said he would not overhaul the ONS's widely-lambasted code of conduct which has been blamed for the public losing confidence in official statistics.

Rhind said: 'If you are one of those people who thinks the ONS is a Machiavellian organisation which keeps information from the public to within the government, this letter from Len Cook does little to dispell the idea.'

The Commission said that in one instance the ONS had prepared sensitive changes to data but had waited six months before telling the public. It thinks the ONS should give fair warning of whenever it will have to revise its figures.

But Cook said he wanted to maintain the status quo - choosing to publicise changes only when he deems it necessary.