• The guidance in this paper provides advice to public sector bodies who will make the determination in the first instance, having taken appropriate advice as necessary. Ultimately, any decision on the classification of transactions, assets, liabilities and entities within the system of National Accounts is for the independent ONS.
• The ONS makes classification decisions via a committee termed the National Accounts Classification Committee ("NACC"). NACC consists of a cross-section of officials from within the various constituent parts of the ONS (National Accounts, labour market statistics, etc). Decisions are signed off at an appropriate level within the ONS. Information about NACC is available on the ONS website4. A key reference document is the Protocol on Statistical Integration and Classification ("ONS Protocol")5.
• Depending on the complexity of a case, a decision may require the sign off of the National Statistician. The ONS is an independent Non-Ministerial Department and ONS independence is seen as a key part of the Treasury's framework for managing the public finances. Recent legislation (the Statistics and Registration Services Act 2007) has been aimed at strengthening the ONS' independence, with the creation of the Statistics Authority to oversee the production of statistics across government.
• In order to protect the independence of the ONS, departments are asked not to seek classification decisions directly from the ONS. The standard process by which government seeks classification decisions from the ONS is set out in the ONS Protocol. Additional guidance is provided by the Treasury's Classification Branch in the Classification Pack6.
• The ONS Protocol is clear that departments should, in the first instance, refer to published guidance and then if the case is not clear-cut, liaise with the Classification Branch in HM Treasury, who provide guidance and make decisions in more straightforward cases. Where a case is complex, or has the potential to be high profile or contentious, HM Treasury will ask the ONS to interpret the guidance and make a decision on the sector classification. In exceptional cases the ONS may contact Eurostat, the statistical authority of the EU, in order to seek guidance.
• The ONS Protocol is clear that the ONS is the final arbiter of decisions related to the National Accounts in the UK and that it can examine cases at any time it sees fit to do so (Annex A of the ONS protocol paragraph 10).
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4 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/about/Methodology_by_theme/national _accounts_classifications.asp
5 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/about/national_statistics/cop/downloads/NSCodeofPractice2.pdf