Just for the record

Mark Easton | 12:53 UK time, Wednesday, 25 March 2009

I have just been sent a new e-mail and official guidance which were sent to the Home Office ahead of their decision to publish inaccurate knife crime statistics last December. The documents reveal that officials were told that publication would "undermine the integrity of official statistics".

The e-mail is dated 26 November, 2008 - a fortnight before the so-called "fact sheet" was released. It clearly warns that the data "is still provisional".

From: Statistical Analyst IC
Sent: 26 November 2008 18:59

To: Home Office Official(x2)

Cc: Department of Health Official

Subject: Month 6 (April to September) Data

Hi

Ahead of schedule, here is the Month 6 (April to September) Data. As before, I have included September data but be aware that as the most recent month, this may not be 100% complete.

As always, please take extra care with this data and who it is shared with as it is still provisional and has not yet been released/published.

Thanks

Statistical Analyst IC

The NHS Information Centre for health and social care
1 Trevelyan Square, Boar Lane, Leeds, LS1 6AE.

Just in case the alert was not clear enough, a footnote attached to the data (which you can read the full details of here) spelt it out.

Pre-release data (RESTRICTED STATISTICS) - 2007-08 PROVISIONAL DATA You are reminded that these are official statistics to which you have privileged access in advance of release. Such access is carefully controlled and is provided for management, quality assurance and briefing purposes only. Release into the public domain or any public comment on these statistics prior to official publication would undermine the integrity of official statistics. Please note these data will be published in their final form in December 2008. Any accidental or wrongful release should be reported immediately and may lead to an inquiry.

The statisticians make it crystal clear that "release into the public domain or any public comment on these statistics prior to official publication would undermine the integrity of official statistics".

Indeed, they go further. "Any accidental or wrongful release should be reported immediately and may lead to an inquiry."

And yet, as we now know, the Home Office and No 10 went ahead with publication on the justification that it showed "the progress that had been made with tackling knife crime".

When the verified figures were finally released it was revealed that the statistics showed no such thing.

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Comments

1. At 1:28pm on 25 Mar 2009, RogerACA wrote:
Mark

Fantastic work on this subject. Please keep trying to call all guilty parties to account, be they at No 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, wherever.

This bone is well worth gnawing at as it (hopefully) will provoke the death of Spin, Spin, Spin and more Spin.

Go get 'em

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2. At 1:28pm on 25 Mar 2009, virtualfang wrote:
'There are lies, Damn lies, Statistics, and Knife Crime'

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3. At 2:26pm on 25 Mar 2009, In Vitrio wrote:
You mean Labour LIED to us? Heaven forfend!

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4. At 2:36pm on 25 Mar 2009, MonkeyBot5000 wrote:
How can there now be any doubt that Jacqui Smith and the Home Office have knowingly misled the public for political gain?

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5. At 3:29pm on 25 Mar 2009, ikamaskeip wrote:
Just to repeat my original view of this matter.

Shock, horror! Stop the press! Halt the print run!

A UK Politician is caught out trying to advance their own career by being untruthful!

The history of this sort of political shennanigans goes back so many centuries you would think by now the elected representatives had given up on the idea of not being found out!?

There are 650 MPs: If we could believe even 2%, i.e. 13 are decent, honest, respectable people with a moral and ethical outlook that would make the nation and their constituents' proud I rather much doubt it.

To repeat: electrician, chef, police, teacher, nurse, binman, solicitor, plumber, fireman, actor, cobbler, doctor, miner, engineer, scientist, paramedic, shopkeeper, cashier, labourer, even banker and estate agent etc. are all preferable occupations for any offspring than the greasy, odious, deceitful life of the 650 Members of Parliament.

MPs have no shame and no one but themselves to blame for their low esteem and predicament in the public eye.

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6. At 4:09pm on 25 Mar 2009, britom wrote:
Good work Mark, but Brown and Smith will carry on regardless. Can you show that they lied about this in Parliament or elsewhere on the record?

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7. At 4:30pm on 25 Mar 2009, Secret Love wrote:
I expect them to try to pacify us by offering a referendum on the subject.

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8. At 8:37pm on 25 Mar 2009, OnTopic wrote:
Great work Mark, nice to see it in print. But what's surprising about it?

24/7 Government by deceit and this causes some sort of shock and horror!

They spun it for the benefit of the party of government, nothing new there from Nu Labour then. Politics is not about public but about politicians, aka control freaks and misleaders. The top dogs are often quite barking, their main interest lies in creating a reputation for themselves on the International stage.

Why are they still giving our money away in large dollops to the Chinese for example, a country with a massive surplus of funds?

Want something better to get your teeth into Mark? Try the IPCC report into the death of Christopher Alder in Police custody. Should you want any assistance I've recently pulled it to bits and kicked the ball back into the IPCC's ball park. Comprehensive but garbage, quite surprising given that it took an experienced barrister 2 years to draft it.

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9. At 9:21pm on 25 Mar 2009, tarquin wrote:
Mark I hope you get a slot on the news at 10 with this

Blatant and misleading, people should be outraged - but do they care unless the tabloids pick it up?

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10. At 4:43pm on 27 Mar 2009, Prince_Claudio wrote:
Can I pop this in here - as I can't seem to find anywhere where it's welcome?
In the article on the lowering of standards in GCSE papers somebody comments that too many pupils don't realise that the earth goes round the sun and not vice versa.
OH NO IT DOESN'T!
If I take as my frame of reference the corner of the field in which I sit, manifestly the sun orbits the earth. And that will do very nicely if I want merely to work out when it's time to go in to dinner. Of course, if I wish to make calculations regarding the sun's position relative to the earth then they are made enormously less complex if I assume the earth rotates round the common centre of gravity. What I'm whinging on about is that a mathematical model is not reality, even though it helps predictions of what will happen in the real world
Einstein proved that the events surrounding us vary according to the observer's frame of reference - indeed even as far as variations in the time interval between these events.
Two points: firstly to say what rotates around what depends on where you stand - or how much computing power you have at your diposal, Secondly in the argument between Galileo and the Pope, both of them were talking cobblers, so when the Pope recently suggested Galileo was right he made it quite clear he had at last discovered the 18th Century. Unfortunately the world's moved on since then - at a varying rate depending on your frame of reference, of course.
If you want to test my assertion ask yourself whether the current mathematical model of the vacuum energy (where each cubic cc of space 'weighs' many trillions of tonnes) is going to do much for you when thinking about whether you are strong enough to move the piano.

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11. At 09:25am on 30 Mar 2009, ikamaskeip wrote:
Re my Comment 5 and "..there are 650 MPs.. if we could believe 2%.. i.e. 13.. were decent.."

In the light of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith's Expenses Claim for her husband watching 'porn' I have just reduced the estimate for 'decent MPs' to 1%, i.e. 6.5!

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12. At 1:09pm on 01 Apr 2009, ikamaskeip wrote:
Prince_Claudio and Comment 10.

Imaginative, inventive and so plausible that I am very pleased you were able to find a spot for your cleverly designed retro-s=ut+halfatsquared!

A new Subject Post-Modernistic Physics without the basic element of Physics would have been such a blessing for dullards like me in my School's Science lessons.

Where were you when I and thousands of other GCE pupils needed you most?

Yes, that is a Scientific-Physics Question! If you or any other contributor can write a lucid explanation in less than 500 words as to Where 'You' Were When 'We' Were There? A Grade Triple A with 5***** is surely 'Yours' (or not, if you see what I mean).

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13. At 9:38pm on 13 Apr 2009, ikamaskeip wrote:
Re my Comments #5 and #11 in which I suggested the % of Westminster MPs that were honourable and trustworthy might be as high as 2% (13) and then 1% (6.5): In view of the disgraceful antics of key Staff at No.10 my estimate for MPs of a decent calibre is now 0.5%, i.e. 3.25 MPs out of 650, and falling with every newscast reporting the 'outrage' and pious 'indignation' of the other 646.75 MPs that make up NuLab, opposition Conservatives and Lib Dems.

Surely the whole rotten, corrupt bunch should be the subject of the Medieval 'Ducking Stool' in the Thames!

And to think BBC Moderators actually CENSORED my first critical Comment on this as being defamatory... Well, BBC Moderators, in view of the No.10 fiasco how about REINSTATING MY FIRST COMMENT IN FULL??????????

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