Dear Scott,

Thank you for your letter of 24 February outlining the data quality issues affecting Public Health Scotland’s breast cancer screening statistics and Scottish Health Services Costs (or “Costs Book”) publication.

Given the issues you have described, I agree to your request for the temporary suspension of accreditation for both sets of statistics. I note that you are considering designating these as official statistics in development while you continue your investigations and improvement work. We have published Official Statistics in Development guidance to help producers understand when and how to use this label.

In your letter you explain that the data quality issues affecting the breast cancer data for Scotland has affected all statistics published from 2015/16 onwards. Therefore, the suspension should also cover those earlier releases, and a notice should be published to explain the issue to users and outline the work under way to investigate it. Given this is the second issue with aggregate data from this IT supplier, we welcome your investigation into whether the problem affects other data submissions.

I welcome your commitment to keeping OSR informed as work progresses on both publications. Once the necessary improvements have been delivered, we would be happy to discuss the most appropriate timing for a compliance review to consider the reinstatement of accredited official statistics status.

Yours sincerely

Ed Humpherson
Director General for OSR