Dear Sam Assessment of the Living Costs and Food Survey We have today published the assessment report of the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF), run by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), against the Code of Practice for Statistics. The LCF is the most significant survey on household spending in the UK and provides […]
Dear Laura Use of official statistics on child poverty in Prime Minister’s Questions Over the last year, a number of concerns have been raised to us regarding the Prime Minister’s use of statistics on child poverty and in each case, we have brought this to the attention of the briefing team in No.10. Further concerns […]
Dear Stephanie Welsh Government Fire and Rescue Incident Statistics, Grassland Fires, Deliberate Fires, and Fire and Rescue Authority Performance As you are aware we recently completed our compliance check of the Welsh Government’s Fire and Rescue Incident Statistics against the Code of Practice for Statistics. This review also covered three additional publications – grassland fires, […]
Dear Sandra National Statistics designation for local authority revenue expenditure and financing, budget statistics, England Thank you for your letter. I’m pleased to hear that you now feel assured that the quality of your local authority revenue expenditure and financing, budget statistics has now improved, and that you have not seen any issues such as […]
Dear Ed, Request for reinstatement of National Statistics designation for Local authority revenue expenditure and financing, England I wrote to you last year to request a temporary suspension of the National Statistics badging for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s statistics on Local authority revenue expenditure and financing, England: 2020 to 2021 budget. […]
Dear Johanna Transparency in statistics Thank you for taking the time to meet me last week; I was encouraged to hear your commitment to transparency. The Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) has a pivotal role in pulling together data both from within the United Kingdom and beyond to inform key government decision-making around Covid-19. It is […]
Dear Sylvia and Jonathan Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework Your predecessors as President and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Professors Deborah Ashby and Guy Nason, wrote to me in March 2019 expressing their concerns about the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF), in particular that it did not meet the standards of trustworthiness, […]
Dear Mr Humpherson, Thank you for your letter dated 10 May 2021 in which you updated me of the publication of your findings concerning the population estimates and projections produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). We note that ONS is expected to report back in July 2021 and we eagerly await the outcome […]
Dear Roger As you are already aware, we have been contacted around the use of unpublished hospital admission data by the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Humza Yousaf, on 2 June. Concerns were also raised about the figure being used in a misleading way. Thank you for liaising with us and for your prompt action in response. This quick response meant that you addressed the […]
Dear Joe Use of statistics in judicial review reform Thank you for your letter on 20 April 2021 setting out your concerns about analysis in the Independent Review of Administrative Law (IRAL) report. You asked us to investigate the accuracy of an analysis of the success rate of Cart judicial reviews, which found that only […]