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New Standards Body for UK Pollsters
Eight leading agencies have announced the launch of the British Polling Council (BPC), an organisation aiming to promote professional standards in public opinion polling and advance public understanding of poll methods and interpretation.
The eight founder companies are CommunicateResearch, ICM, MORI, NOP, ORB, Populus, TNS System 3 and YouGov.
The BPC also aims 'to give interested parties advice on best practice in the conduct and reporting of polls and will comment on significant events in the field of opinion research'. The organisation says that 'Membership is limited to organisations who can show to the satisfaction of the BPC that the sampling methods and weighting procedures used are designed to accurately represent the views of all people within designated target groups (such as all adults, or voters etc)'.
The launch follows criticism of the industry and of unscientific 'cowboy' polls in a Commons motion organised by the Labour MP Barry Sheerman and backed by more than 80 MPs from all parties.
A Council of nine members will consist of 'pollsters, journalists and academics with particular expertise in the field of polling'. John Barter, former chairman of NOP and of the Market Research Society, will be its first President and ICM's Nick Sparrow its Secretary.
A three-person committee will review reported breaches of the disclosure rules and nine people have agreed to serve on this sub-committee when required. They are: Simon Atkinson of MORI; David Butler (Fellow of Nuffield College Oxford); the BBC's David Cowling; ex-Deputy Editor of The Guardian David McKie; NOP's Nick Moon; past MRS / ESOMAR PSC Chairman Adam Phillips; Colin Rallings (Professor at the Local Government Chronicle Election Centre at University of Plymouth); The Times' Peter Riddell; and Peter Kellner of YouGov.
The BPC, which will be launched on November 15, acknowledges the advice of the National Council for Published Polls in the USA (www.ncpp.org ) which has been used as a model. The new council's own web site, which among other useful info tantalisingly includes an 'Under Construction' page entitled '20 Questions A Journalist Should Ask About A Poll', is at www.britishpollingcouncil.org
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