Dear Jen
Quality of the estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales
In July 2022, at your request, we temporarily suspended the accreditation of the estimates from the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) due to quality concerns, specifically, the reduced data collection period and lower response rate. You recently asked us to consider reinstating the accreditation of the CSEW estimates, following your quality review.
We commend your methodical approach to reviewing data quality and welcome the assurances you provided to users about the limited impact of the lower response rate on the quality of the estimates.
However, given the recent concerns raised by some users about the communication of the CSEW statistics, we consider it necessary to carry out additional work on the value of the statistics before we reach a decision on reinstating the accreditation. This will take into account the findings of your internal review of the communication of the crime statistics, which is being led from outside the crime statistics team and was commissioned to address the user concerns.
In our view, you have now addressed the two quality concerns that led to the suspension of the accreditation. Your quality review demonstrated that the quality of the current estimates is broadly similar to the pre-pandemic estimates despite the smaller sample size and lower response rate. In particular, you found that the sample characteristics for estimates for the year ending March 2023 are closer to the Census 2021 population figures than the estimates for the year ending March 2020, when they were last published as accredited official statistics, which is reassuring. It is good that you are working with the survey contractor to put in place measures to increase the response rate, which will support good-quality estimates.
Nevertheless, our judgement is that it is important to review the accreditation in the round and gain wider assurances on the extent to which the statistics are meeting the standards of the Code of Practice for Statistics.
We will aim to make a decision on reinstating the accreditation in September 2024.
Yours sincerely
Ed Humpherson