Commentary on Sections Information relating to births and deaths etc. Section 287 – Provision of Statistical Information by Statistics Board
1495.This section amends section 42 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007, which contains provision to specify that the Statistics Board (ONS) may disclose information on births & deaths to a number of bodies.
1496.In a similar way to the amendment to section 270, section 287(2) replaces the reference to the Secretary of State with a range of persons and bodies connected to the health service. The section also gives the Secretary of State and Welsh Ministers a new direction making power to specify additional organisations which can receive information from the Statistics Board.
1497.The Act also clarifies the respective roles and responsibilities of the Registrar General and the Office for National Statistics as there is considerable overlap between the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and the NHS Act.
1498.Previously, there was a memorandum of understanding between the two organisations that defined the responsibilities for providing data to the Secretary of State. Broadly speaking, the Registrar General provides administrative data and the Office for National Statistics provides statistical data. These amendments to section 42 formalise the effect of the memorandum of understanding between the two organisations by limiting the powers of the Office for National Statistics, so that it is required to provide statistical information only.
1499.Subsection (2) sets out the information which may be disclosed by the Statistics Board as follows:
1500.Subsection (4) provides definitions of local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and Special Health Authorities.