Cowperthwaite, ‘ee’s our man

Sir John Cowperthwaite, when running Hong Kong, famously banned anyone collecting the GDP statistics on the grounds that some damn fool would only try to do something with them.

The problem with economic data is there’s just too much of it

If the job of statistics is to provide insight then organisations such as the ONS would do better to cut back on the amount they produce

Well, yes, we should be Cowperthwaitian about this. Stop the damn fools having any numbers to try to do things with. We’ll then regain that paradise of a government that simply sets the basic rules and we all then get on with life.

It is, of course, possible to think that this is a slightly extreme view of the function of government. There might even be those who suspect it might be a bit minimalist. So there’s is another approach that can be taken:

The second example is apparent if you scour the ONS website for recent publications. These include “Navigating demographic gaps in hybrid working” and “Short-term lets through online collaborative economy platforms”. Both of these are interesting and insightful pieces of data analysis. But at a time when the core mission on accurate data surrounding employment, prices, population and economic growth are open to question, they are also luxuries the ONS cannot afford.

And here is the lesson from the ONS for leaders across the public sector as they face a tight spending review for administrative budgets: identifying what is peripheral and needs to be stopped will be central to avoiding core services being underfunded and deteriorating. The challenge facing our national statistics is an illuminating case study for a much wider programme of public service reform.

Restrict government to those core tasks it is actually competent at. Seems like a plan.

But this does bring us back to that same requirement for minarchy. For, other than just setting the basic rule of law etc, what are the damn fools competent at? Quite, quite, we rest our case.

Tim Worstall