Appendix: UK Statistics Authority Response
Letter from the Chair of the UK
Statistics Authority (UKSA), Sir Andrew Dilnot CBE, dated
2 September 2014
I am writing in response to the Committee's report
on crime statistics, published on 9 April 2014.
The Committee's report made a number of recommendations
to the UK Statistics Authority and the Office for National Statistics
(ONS), and I enclose at Annex A responses to each of those.
I would also like to take this opportunity briefly
to set out developments in the area of crime statistics, since
the Committee's report was published.
The Authority's view remains that the transfer of
responsibility for crime statistics from the Home Office to ONS
in 2012 was an important step in improving the independence and
integrity of these statistics.
ONS statisticians, in their January 2013 analysis
of the variation in crime trends, brought to light many of the
issues the Committee subsequently commented on in its report,
and have already started to respond to the recommendations of
the Authority's Assessment of Crime Statistics in England and
Wales, published in January 2014. Staff are working closely
with representatives from the Home Office and Her Majesty's Inspectorate
of Constabulary to improve both the quality of the underlying
data provided to the Home Office by police forces in England and
Wales, and the robustness of ongoing audit and quality assurance
procedures. The broader aim of this work is to secure the re-designation
of police recorded crime statistics for England and Wales as National
Statistics.
Alongside this work, under the direction of the Authority's
Head of Assessment, the Authority is exploring the implications
of its assessment of crime statistics for other official statistics
and in July published an exposure draft of a monitoring review
on the quality assurance and auditing of administrative data.[1]
1 www.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/assessment/monitoring/administrative-data-and-official-statistics/index.html
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