Dear Amy
National Statistics designation for the police officer uplift statistics
We have reviewed the actions that your team has taken to address the requirements in our Assessment of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics: Police officer uplift statistics. I would like to thank you and your team’s engagement with us during the assessment, demonstrating Home Office’s commitment to developing and improving the statistics for the public good.
On behalf of the Board of the UK Statistics Authority, I am pleased to confirm the designation of National Statistics for the police officer uplift statistics. These statistics provide timely, high quality and insightful information on the UK Government’s progress towards its target to recruit an additional 20,000 police officers in England and Wales.
Your team responded quickly and proactively to implement the requirements and recommendations of our assessment. We particularly welcome the team’s plans to continue to develop these statistics after the end of the Police Uplift Programme in March 2023, including the commitment to publishing one-off articles about retention and entry routes of new recruits, which will help fill two data gaps. We also support the ongoing improvements to data on protected characteristics, and the team’s ambitions to gather richer data on the whole police workforce, which will enhance the value of all police workforce statistics. More detail about our judgement is included in the Annex.
National Statistics status means that official statistics meet the highest standards of trustworthiness, quality and value and is something to be celebrated.
I am copying this letter to Paul Trenell, Head of Police and Fire Analysis at Home Office, and Jodie Hargreaves, Head of Policing Statistics at Home Office.
Yours sincerely
Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation
Annex: Review of actions taken in response to Assessment of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics: Police officer uplift statistics, produced by Home Office
Requirement | Actions taken and commitments made by Home Office to meet the requirement | OSR’s evaluation of evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Requirement 1 The value of the statistics should be enhanced in several ways. Home Office should:
| Commentary was added to the July 2022 bulletin that explains how the police officer allocation is based on the funding allocation and how recruitment levels vary throughout the year. The year-ending March bulletins highlight which forces have and haven’t met their year-end target. Currently, data held by Home Office on entry routes of new recruits is available only from August 2021. NPCC has collected a full dataset on the entry routes of new recruits since the start of the programme (April 2020). NPCC is assuring the quality of the data received and contacted forces to tackle known quality issues. Once the quality of these data has been assured, Home Office plans to publish a one-off article on entry routes after March 2023 (subject to NPCC’s consent to use the data). Currently, NPCC collects record-level information on police officer leavers during the programme, including the reason for leaving and protected characteristics, but there are quality issues with these data. Home Office intends to cleanse and assure the quality of the data, with the aim of publishing a one-off article on retention after March 2023 (subject to NPCC’s consent to use the data). In addition, Home Office has put forward an Annual Data Requirement (ADR) for police forces to collect record-level leavers data internally. If approved, it would be collected in 2023/24 for the first time and would allow it to present more detailed information on leavers in the main police workforce statistics. Home Office plans for future bulletins to reference research conducted by the Home Office about the uplift programme, such as results from the Police Uplift Programme New Recruits Onboarding Survey. Home Office publishes all protected characteristics information that is collected through the uplift programme, including data on the sex, gender, ethnicity and age of officers in England and Wales by police force area, and overall figures on disability and sexual orientation. Disability and sexual orientation data by police force area are not published as they are incomplete. Religion data are published as part of the annual workforce statistics. Home Office has committed to continue to monitor and assess the completeness of protected characteristics data and publish data where appropriate. | We welcome Home Office’s commitment to publishing one-off articles about retention and entry routes of new recruits. This information will help fill two data gaps identified by the users we spoke to. We also support the introduction of the ADR requirement, which would provide richer data on leavers across the whole police workforce. This demonstrates Home Office’s ambitions to maximise the benefits of improvements and enhance the value of the police workforce statistics for all users. The added commentary about the Police Uplift Programme (PUP) helps users better understand the funding context and in-year variation in recruitment. And the inclusion of links to related research and analysis will enhance the accessibility and coherence of the evidence base on PUP. It is good that all protected characteristics data are made available, as they allow the public to monitor whether the police are becoming more representative of the communities they serve. We encourage Home Office and NPCC to continue to improve the completeness of disability and sexual orientation data and to add further insight on these protected characteristics. |
| Requirement 2 To support user confidence in and understanding of all aspects of the quality of the data, including limitations and quality assurance, Home Office should:
| Home Office has added information on the completeness of data for all protected characteristics (by adding the proportion of unknowns for each characteristic) and dropped the Experimental Statistics label for the protected characteristics in the annex (disability status and sexual orientation). Home Office has committed to providing a quality rating for each protected characteristic in the police workforce statistics user guide in the next publication (October 2022). Commentary was added to the user guide on the limitations of the census population estimates and the comparability between censuses. Following publication of the ONS Census 2021 data by ethnicity (expected to be released in November/December 2022), Home Office will update its publication in due course. It intends to include a table outlining how the population by ethnicity in each police force area has changed from the 2011 to 2021 census. Further commentary is expected to be added to the bulletin regarding how the proportion of individuals identifying as ethnic minorities has changed between the 2011 and 2021 Censuses. Home Office plans to prepare users by letting them know the change will be coming in due course. Home Office intends to update the user guide to explain the quality assurance (QA) process in more detail, including the roles and responsibilities of the different organisations involved, and create a flow chart to visualise the process of data collection. As a result of its QAAD assessment, Home Office has enhanced its QA documentation: it now plans to document a checklist of what QA checks are needed for the production of data tables and Open Data, including how to check both of these sources of data match, and record QA checks in a QA log. | We appreciate that Home Office is providing more detailed information on the completeness of the protected characteristics data. This will help users better understand the limitations of these data. Home Office has been clear about how it intends to explain the new census data and its impact on the statistics and has a clear plan for informing users. The inclusion of the updated estimates will allow users to understand how representativeness has changed over time at the national and police force level. It is good that Home Office plans to explain the QA arrangements in more detail and include a visualisation of the process. This will make it easy for users to understand the QA checks further assure them of the quality of the data. We are pleased that our QAAD framework has helped the team strengthen its QA arrangements. |
| Requirement 3 To minimise the risks around the release of the statistics and data, and enhance public confidence in the integrity of the statistics, Home Office should:
| Home Office has reduced the pre-release access list where possible, for instance, by removing Ministers who do not need access. The statistics team told us there are constraints to who can be removed – for example, there is a handful of policy colleagues who oversee different aspects of the programme who need access, or occasionally there are a large number of press officers with access if the Home Office intends to make proactive statements about the statistics. Since July 2022, the pre-release access list highlights that colleagues in the NPCC, and policy officials from the Police Uplift Programme have had advanced access to provisional management information, from the NPCC, on the programme; and that statistics in their final form are not shared outside of the production team until the 24-hour pre-release period. The statistics team works closely with press and policy colleagues to ensure that statistics are presented accurately and objectively in all Home Office outputs. It provides examples of dos and don’ts and regular reminders to be objective and accurate when communicating statistics with the public. Home Office has reduced the pre-release access list where possible, for instance, by removing Ministers who do not need access. The statistics team told us there are constraints to who can be removed – for example, there is a handful of policy colleagues who oversee different aspects of the programme who need access, or occasionally there are a large number of press officers with access if the Home Office intends to make proactive statements about the statistics. Since July 2022, the pre-release access list highlights that colleagues in the NPCC, and policy officials from the Police Uplift Programme have had advanced access to provisional management information, from the NPCC, on the programme; and that statistics in their final form are not shared outside of the production team until the 24-hour pre-release period. The statistics team works closely with press and policy colleagues to ensure that statistics are presented accurately and objectively in all Home Office outputs. It provides examples of dos and don’ts and regular reminders to be objective and accurate when communicating statistics with the public. | We recognise the challenge of reducing pre-release access, given the significance of, and wide interest in, the Police Uplift Programme, so it is good that Home Office has managed to reduce the number of recipients to an extent. We encourage the team to continue to explore opportunities to reduce access. The description of the management information process enhances transparency around data governance and raises awareness of the different uses of the data. We are confident that the statistics team has put strong arrangements in place for ensuring accurate and objective presentation of the statistics. |