Tag Archives: michael scholar

Mark Pack

Official rebukes Iain Duncan Smith over immigration figures (mis)use

By Mark Pack | Wed 25th January 2012 - 7:04 pm

The BBC reports:

The UK’s statistics watchdog has rebuked a minister over his handling of controversial figures on benefits claimed by immigrants.

Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority, has written to Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, questioning the way he released the figures almost week ago.

He highlighted that the figures were presented to the public as if they were official figures but in fact had not been through the rigorous and impartial process for publishing such numbers:

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Mark Pack

DWP rebuked over its use of statistics

By Mark Pack | Sat 27th November 2010 - 12:24 pm

The Guardian reports,

The head of the UK Statistics Authority has issued a public rebuke to welfare ministers over their use of official statistics, warning of “serious deficiencies” in the handling of unemployment data.

Sir Michael Scholar, the head of the authority, said that by failing to show the evidence for claims made by ministers, the government risked undermining public trust.

His criticism comes a day after Iain Duncan Smith, the secretary of state for work and pensions, was forced to explain to MPs why the “official” statistics he quoted in parliament had in fact been taken from a property website owned by

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Sara Bedford

Watchdog says Shadow Home Secretary ‘likely to damage’ trust in statistics

By Sara Bedford | Thu 4th February 2010 - 12:56 pm

Yesterday I wrote about Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling’s extraordinarily twisted use of statistics to try to justify part of the Conservatives’ ‘Broken Britain’ narrative.

Today the BBC’s Mark Easton, who broke the original story, has the news that Chris Grayling has just been sent a sharp letter from Parliament’s statistics watchdog, informing him that his mis-use of statistics about violent crime is ‘likely to damage public trust in official statistics’. The Chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), Sir Michael Scholar, says he does ‘not wish to become involved in political controversy’,  but ‘must take issue’ with Grayling’s comments ‘yesterday about violent crime statistics’.

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