RSSeNEWS to be determined...

Comment by Chris Grayling MP on violent crime statistics "seems likely to me to damage public trust in official statistics", according to UK Statistics Authority chairman, Sir Michael Scholar. His view was set out in a letter to Mr Grayling published on the Authority's web site, together with a Monitoring and Assessment Note setting out the Authority's views in more detail.

In its press release the Authority says that it is:

"...concerned that recent political and media debate about trends in violent crime has misrepresented the data and is, therefore, damaging trust in official statistics. We have looked in particular at comparisons between recorded violent offences in the late 1990s and 2008/09 which have been the subject of recent controversy in the national media. We regard a comparison, without qualification, of police recorded statistics between the late 1990s and 2008/09 as likely to mislead the public."