UK Statistics Authority refuses to 'referee' use of official statistics

The UK Statistics Authority has refused to intervene in a dispute between the London Borough of Newham and the government over the latter's alleged misrepresentation of official statistics.

The mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales, had complained to the statistics authority about two separate sets of data published by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) in its consultations on the formula grant allocations and the proposed new transition grant, which he suggested was misleading.

Writing to Sir Robin in response to his complaint, the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar, said that while it appeared that the government had “made use of the statistics to present their arguments as persuasively as possible”, he did not consider it part of the regulator's role to adjudicate on the interpretation of official statistics.

He wrote: “The Statistics Authority recognises that political debate frequently involves the selection and interpretation of available statistics. It believes that it is not appropriate or practical for the Authority to intervene whenever statistics are used in support of political argument, on one side or the other. Our expectation is that statements which are less firmly based are likely to be challenged by other parties to the debate, and also by journalists, commentators and others. Our role is to make sure that public debate is well informed by good statistics; not ourselves to become a player or the referee in the debate.”

However, the authority did reject Newham's allegations about the statistical accuracy of the government's figures.

“[Our] professional statisticians are not concerned about the statistical issues raised in your letter,” Sir Michael Scholar wrote. “The statistical data sources were clearly identified and the methodologies used were published such that it was clear how the calculations had been made. The proposals for the transition grant used a new concept of 'revenue spending power' which was specifically designed by DCLG for that purpose and which drew on statistics on council tax as well as finance data on grant streams. The Head of Profession for Statistics in DCLG was consulted both on the methodology and on the presentation of the data before they were published.”

“The second set of data on formula grant per head was a simple calculation for each local authority in terms of its proposed grant divided by its population. The DCLG publishes such calculations routinely for historic data and the data for the provisional funding settlement was intended to provide an indication of formula grant per head for 2011-12 and 2012-13 under the proposed funding allocation regime.

“The concern raised about the inclusion of NHS money in calculations by DCLG of reductions in revenue spending power is not a statistical issue. NHS money has been transferred to local authorities and, as such, represents part of their 'revenue spending power' as defined by DCLG and, therefore, was included in the calculations made by DCLG.”

The full text of the letter is available by clicking on the following link: Letter from Sir Michael Scholar to Sir Robin Wales