Dear Ed,
Today we published our action plan for improving the quality of police recorded crime statistics in England and Wales. This was developed in response to the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) review of the quality of police recorded crime statistics for England and Wales.
I would like to thank your team for its positive engagement and support throughout the review. While the OSR report recognised the significant progress that has been made in improving crime recording, it also outlined recommendations for us to support further improvements to data quality. We have worked with the Home Office and His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) to produce an action plan for addressing these recommendations.
The action plan outlines how we will address the key areas that OSR identified for improvement. These include strengthening oversight of police force data quality, better communication of the quality of the statistics, data quality improvement initiatives and greater collaboration and knowledge sharing between the organisations involved in collecting and processing police recorded crime data.
Within the action plan, we have prioritised actions into improvements by summer 2025 and those that are longer term. As we progress through this action plan, we will continue to update and provide evidence to our users.
We look forward to continuing to work with you and your team as we implement these improvements.
Yours sincerely,
Jen Woolford
Director of Public Policy Analysis, Office for National Statistics