Remember the statistics released by the Home Office yesterday – and reported in the newspapers today – which highlighted positive devlepments in the war on knife crime? Well, you can officially disregard those statistics. The Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, has issued an angry letter saying that the numbers weren’t ready for public consumption and blaming Number Ten for getting them released prematurely. The Standard’s Paul Waugh has the complete text of Scholar’s letter, but here’s the main thrust of it:
“It has been reported to me by the National Statistician’s Office that officials or advisers in No. 10 Downing Street caused the Home Office to issue a Press Release which prematurely published provisional statistics for hospital admissions for knife or sharp instrument wounding. This Press Release said that ‘the number of teenagers admitted to hospital for knife or sharp instrument wounding in nine…police force areas fell by 27 per cent according to new figures published today.’ 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.”There’s often a great deal of cynicism about the Labour spin operation and the lengths they’ll go to to get positive headlines. Unedifiying goings-on such as this suggest it may not be unwarranted.
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