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| | Politics | The importance of being independent |
 | | For a government which makes so much of its granting of independence to the Bank of England back in 1997, today's move to set up a similar arrangement for the Office for National Statistics is long overdue - hence its welcome by the ONS, the Conservatives and the LibDems. |
 | | As the ONS chief, Karen Dunnell says, it was not that the ONS was not already operating in an open and transparent fashion, it was that it was not seen to be doing so, which was damaging to it. |
 | | For example, it could never shake off the accusation that it had defined Network Rail's debt as being off the government's balance sheet to please the government, even though its decision was in line with international statistical norms. |
| politics.guardian.co.uk /print/0,3858,5343523-110366,00.html (276 words) |
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