The Chancellor of the Exchequer has yet to make clear quite how independent the ONS is going to be or how wide its remit. The truly independent Statistics Commission has pushed for improvements in the collection and presentation of national statistics and it would be good to see this organisation having a pivotal role in the new set-up. If the Treasury retains the right to appoint the chief statistician, for instance, there will be lingering concerns that perhaps the job will go to someone who shares the Chancellor’s thoughts as to quite what should appear in the national accounts and what might be left conveniently off balance sheet.

Mr Cook seemed remarkably of a mind with Mr Brown on such matters as to how the Government’s financial commitments to Network Rail or the London Underground’s financiers should remain unquantified on the nation’s balance sheet. The beneficial effect that this had on Mr Brown’s own performance figures was hard to ignore and the Statistics Commission took issue with the rulings.

That there should be independence for the ONS was not top of the wish-list for delegates at the CBI’s conference yesterday but at least it was something positive for the Chancellor to tell them. It was also probably something he could say without entering direct confrontation with the Prime Minister.

The same was probably true of his promise to halt in its tracks the imposition of the Operating and Financial Review (OFR). It was perfectly clear from the moment that Patricia Hewitt launched the OFR that it would be an exercise in futility. Companies told that they must report on such things as their relations with customers and staff were hardly likely to bare their souls in a public document. If they had, it would have made entertaining and enlightening reading for rivals.

Already, however, big bills have been amassed by companies preparing for the advent of the OFR. They will be rightly aggrieved by the waste of money, and those who were hoping to cash in by advising on the OFR are none too happy, either. Accountants, in particular, would have been heading for another bonanza.

The Government’s decision to repent on this nonsense is to be welcomed. What the CBI and its members would welcome even more is if the Government would now repent on the even greater nonsense of continuing to pay public sector pensions at age 60. The Chancellor appears to be seeing sense on this, while the Prime Minister is backing Alan Johnson and the unions.

When it comes to the Turner report on pensions, Mr Brown and Mr Blair appear equally divided, as the Chancellor continues to prefer means-testing to a higher basic pension. No boardroom could survive such disagreements on strategy.

HSBC’s worthy double-act

“COMPLY or explain,” demands the corporate governance code of those companies that would promote their chief executive to chairman. The board of HSBC would have needed only to say “continuity is what works for us” to have ensured the support of shareholders for its latest boardroom changes.

Sir John Bond, and Sir William Purves before him, have demonstrated that a chairman who has had experience actually running the bank is well-placed to judge how brave it can be in taking the big decisions. Under Sir John, HSBC took many in the City by surprise with the purchase of Household in the United States, but that deal has rapidly proved itself.

The corporate governance theorists contend that the ideal blueprint for a company is a non-executive independent chairman running the board and a chief executive running the company. But when an organisation is as big as HSBC, having a full-time double-act at the helm has much to recommend it. The chemistry has to be right, but the HSBC way of doing things gives the board plenty of time to establish how the next pairing might work. With the top 50 executives having clocked up a total of almost a thousand years with the bank, their personalities should hold few secrets for each other.

Sir John’s own reputation should ensure that he is in much demand to take on new roles once he leaves HSBC in May. As a non-executive chairman, he would be ideally placed to stem some of the loneliness for a chief executive of a major company. He will have plenty of choice.

Market force?

SIR JOHN MOGG, chairman of Ofgem, is understandably frustrated that most continental gas markets have nothing like the competitive structure developed in Britain. If they did, more gas would be flowing across from Belgium to take advantage of the European Union’s highest wholesale prices.

Sir John’s demand for an urgent European Commission inquiry into this latest market distortion is unlikely, however, to melt much ice with continental governments that kept integrated monopolistic regimes. They are delighted to see their suppliers conserving stocks for the home market, even if they have not forced them to do so.

Continental consumers have been complaining for years about paying through the nose while UK consumers enjoyed continuous low prices. Now that supplies are tight, the roles are reversed and they are, temporarily, enjoying the one benefit of uncompetitive markets.

In the chair

AS YET more unsavoury whiffs emerge from the Compass kitchen, the need for fresh blood at the top becomes more pressing. Sir Roy Gardner is the designated successor to the chairman, Sir Francis Mackay, but he cannot replace him until Centrica has a new chief executive settled in his position. That could take some time. Sir Roy must be wondering whether it would be kinder to Compass to suggest that the company should seek a chairman who is more immediately available. That might also seem kinder to Sir Roy.

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