It might be expected that the work of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, for example, would be geared to the investigation of social conditions. But the Rayner Report on the OPCS almost denied any such role, giving emphasis instead to investigation of the social impact of policy changes. The Report emphasised the importance of work carried out by the OPCS for other government departments, and betrayed a perspective that saw social conditions as the outcome of policy changes rather the subject of policy debate:
The need for the kind of data OPCS provides is also a function of pace of social change - and this too has increased in recent years. Thus regionalism, abortion law reform, divorce law reform, immigration legislation and so on have all led to work being required of OPCS. (Paragraph 8.15)