The UK Statistics Authority has accused the government of releasing “premature, irregular and selective” figures which appeared to prove that knife crime in the UK was falling.
The Authority’s chair Sir Michael Scholar has written to the Permanent Secretary at Number 10 as follows:
These statistics were not due for publication for some time, and had not therefore been through the regular process of checking and quality assurance.
The statisticians who produced them, together with the National Statistician, tried unsuccessfully to prevent their premature, irregular and selective release.
I hope you will agree that the publication of prematurely released and unchecked statistics is corrosive of public trust in official statistics, and incompatible with the high standards which we are all seeking to establish.
I would be grateful for your comments, and for your assurance that there will be no repetition of this breach of the National Statistics Code of Practice.
Chris Huhne has commented:
Yet again this government has been caught peddling dodgy statistics. If ministers want the British people to trust anything they say, statistics must be made completely independent of government. Unfortunately it still seems that ministers are prepared to put courting the headlines ahead of checking the facts. This seems like a failed attempt to cover up criticism of Gordon Brown by rushing out a flimsy good news story.
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2 Comments
Quite right, although Labour does deserve some credit for bringing in these standards in the first place. Previously, this sort of abuse of statistics was normal and unremarked upon. That they haven’t made the transition to honest statistics all in one go, would probably have happened to anyone.
While the mishandling of these statistics is disappointing, it is important that this doesn’t overshadow the serious issue of knife crime and the government’s approach to tackling it.
At Beatbullying we believe it vital that government builds on the police’s crack down by looking to change young people’s attitudes towards knife possession and violence as this is what is going to make the real difference over time.