In our latest guest blog, leading British statistician, David Spiegelhalter explores why trustworthiness—not trust—should be at the heart of statistical communication. Drawing on the influence of Baroness Onora O’Neill and reflecting on the updated Code of Practice for Statistics 3.0, he argues for intelligent transparency, honest communication, and a commitment to helping the public genuinely understand evidence. He also shares why it’s not enough for statistics to be trustworthy—they must be engaging too.
I give many talks to all sorts of audiences, from health professionals to business executives to attendees at book festivals. And, perhaps surprisingly, the Code of Practice for Statistics features in almost all of them (I do exclude school students from my propaganda).
This all comes from my obsession with the ideas of Baroness Onora O’Neill. She is a top philosopher, specialising in Kant, and she presented the Reith Lectures on A Question of Trust in 2002 – I still value the excellent book of her lectures. She was brilliant at distilling years of thought into short and clear statements, and one of these has had a huge influence on me, both professionally and personally.
In this age of misinformation and scepticism of authority, a repeated question is ‘how can we improve trust in science/institutions/public health etc?’. To which O’Neill replies, that’s the wrong question. Rather than trying to manipulate people into trusting us, we should be earning that trust by demonstrating trustworthiness. This is such a simple idea, presumably based on Kant’s idea of duty ethics (although I’ve never read any Kant), which places the responsibility firmly on the authority.
When I introduce this idea in a talk, many people in the audience take pictures of the slide, so I know it must be good. I then go on to show the Trustworthiness – Quality – Value (TQV) framework of the Code of Practice, showing Trustworthiness as the first pillar, although emphasising how important the Q and V are too. I feel I am channelling Baroness O’Neill.
I have recently had to update my slides with the new Code of Practice for Statistics 3.0. This rightly keeps to the basic core principles of TQV, which continue to form the basis for standards for official statistics. But I have been delighted to see the introduction of Standards for the Public Use of Statistics, Data and Wider Analysis. These focus on the way that statistics are communicated and used in public life, and are rooted in the idea of ‘intelligent transparency’ – incidentally another term introduced by Onora O’Neill. This includes equality of access and independence, but also enhancing understanding, which is my main interest.
Back in the pandemic in 2020, a group of us became very frustrated at the amount of frankly untrustworthy numbers being bandied around, by both politicians and commentators, so we tried to list what we thought were the vital components of trustworthy communication of evidence. Nature published our rant as a commentary, with our five points being essentially:
- Inform and not persuade
- Balance (but not false balance)
- Acknowledge uncertainty
- Be upfront about the quality of the evidence
- Pre-empt misunderstandings
These later got incorporated into the Government Communication Service RESIST 2 Counter-Disinformation toolkit.
The Code of Practice 3.0 contains the essence of these principles for trustworthy communication, for example saying:
- Do present and use data and statistics objectively, being impartial and professional
- Do clearly describe the quality of data and statistics, including uncertainty and bias in estimates and impacts on appropriate interpretation and use
- Do not use statistics, data or wider analysis in a misleading way. This includes not cherry-picking figures, taking figures out of context or placing undue certainty on them.
- Take proactive steps to prevent or minimise the risk of misinterpretation or misuse.
I feel particularly strongly about the last point. It’s not enough to suggest what the statistics mean, it is also vital to say what they do not This could be thought of as pre-empting misunderstanding, but also could pre-bunk misinformation – getting in there early before false claims start circulating.
There is one final issue that is not in the Code. When communicating, I believe that there is little point in being trustworthy if you are dull. While the information should not be trying to persuade people to think or do anything, I do feel that it is fine to try and persuade audiences to be interested – to engage in the evidence so that they can be better informed.
So I have a small suggestion for Code of Practice 4.0: don’t be dull.