A framework for quality improvements

Our recommendations for improving the quality of the police recorded crime data and statistics for England and Wales are what we deem as critical to address before we undertake a reassessment of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. Our recommendations cover three improvement areas.

ONS and the Home Office should develop an action plan that sets out how they are going to address these recommendations.

This should be published by early 2025.

1. The Home Office needs to strengthen its oversight of police force data quality.

We consider that insufficient oversight by the Home Office poses a significant risk to the quality of the statistics. The Home Office must understand how police forces manage the quality of their recorded crime data and assure itself of the quality of the data collected by forces.

• As a first step to greater assurance of the quality of police recorded crime data, the Home Office should gain a better understanding of police forces’ quality assurance arrangements. (Recommendation 4)
• The Home Office should then develop a detailed plan on how it will support greater consistency of quality assurance across police forces. The Home Office should use our Quality Assurance of Administrative Data (QAAD) framework to guide this work and ensure that all the relevant quality areas are covered. Stakeholders, such as the National Police Chiefs’ Council, should be consulted as part of this work. (Recommendation 5)
• To strengthen its oversight of police force data quality, the Home Office should work with police forces to gain an understanding of the strengths and limitations of the different crime recording IT systems, and how variation in systems impacts data quality. (Recommendation 2)

2. ONS needs to better communicate the quality of the statistics and data quality improvement initiatives to users.

ONS should provide greater assurance for users of the statistics about all aspects of the quality of police force data.

• To communicate, and assure users about, all aspects of the quality of police recorded crime data, ONS should expand its published information on quality to cover (Recommendation 8):
  • police forces’ quality assurance arrangements.
  • the strengths and limitations of different crime recording IT systems used by police forces.
  • the nature of crime recording improvements made by police forces since 2014.
• To enhance the value of quality information, ONS should explain the data quality framework it uses to assess the reliability of police recorded crime statistics for different offence types. (Recommendation 9)
• To inform users about the National Data Quality Improvement Service (NDQIS) programme and its impact on the quality of the statistics, ONS should publish and regularly update information about developments and methods, including the strengths and limitations of the tools. (Recommendation 7)

3. Greater collaboration and knowledge sharing between the organisations involved in collecting and processing police recorded crime data is necessary to strengthen oversight and better communicate quality.

• To promote more-consistent and more-efficient use of crime recording IT systems, police forces should work more collaboratively and improve knowledge sharing about systems. (Recommendation 1)
• To promote best practice around quality assurance of recorded crime data, police forces should improve knowledge sharing on the checking and validation of crime records. (Recommendation 3)
• To develop the most comprehensive and up-to-date picture of crime data integrity in police forces, the Home Office, HMICFRS and ONS should work together and use all available data, including HMICFRS inspection findings, HMICFRS management information and Home Office intelligence. (Recommendation 6)
• ONS should work closely with HMICFRS, the Home Office and, where necessary, police forces, to establish the drivers of the divergence between the police recorded crime statistics and Crime Survey for England and Wales statistics. (Recommendations 10)

We recognise that implementing these recommendations is a significant task. It will require resource and ongoing engagement with police forces. However, we see this work as critical to enhancing the quality of the statistics and public confidence in the quality of the statistics. By demonstrating that they understand, and have confidence in, the quality of police recorded crime data, the Home Office and ONS promote public trust in the data and crime recording processes.

We will continue to engage with ONS and the Home Office as they develop and implement an action plan. Once we are satisfied that sufficient improvement has been made, we will decide whether the statistics are ready to be reassessed against the Code of Practice for Statistics.