Tag Archives: statistics

ONS consults on plan to axe data on people who die while homeless. Why hide it?

Frozen: These snow effigies of homeless people were created in 2018 to demonstrate that rough sleepers were freezing to death. Has anything changed since then?

Is this another Tory government bid to hide the effect of its policies on the people of the UK?

It seems the Office for National Statistics is consulting the public on whether to scrap its annual count of the number of people who die while they are homeless.

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Read the following – and the source article too, if you want more information – and then please take part in the consultation here. It is running until March 5 so please share it with your friends.

Official statistics counting the number of people who die while homeless in England and Wales could be axed despite frontline organisations warning rising homelessness means “now is not the time”.

The ONS count uses death certificates to ascertain whether someone died while homeless alongside modelling to produce an estimate. The most recent count, published in November 2022, found an estimated 741 people died in 2021.

“This proposal does not reflect our view on the seriousness of the issue of deaths of homeless people. However the current homeless deaths statistics have included major caveats around factors including time of death, the definition of homelessness and their alignment with statistics on the total number of homeless people,” an ONS spokesperson said.

“ONS is open to re-establishing these statistics in future, and would value users’ views on their relative importance compared to other health and social care statistics through the consultation currently running.”

The move has faced criticism from frontline homelessness organisations.

Balbir Kaur Chatrik, director of policy and communications at youth homelessness charity Centrepoint, said: “Of the more than 700 deaths in 2021, 31 were under 25, thirteen still teenagers. Youth homelessness has increased significantly since then and we’re worried even more lives will have been lost.

“Statistics alone won’t end homelessness – but without a solid evidence base it will be impossible to tell how far we have to go.”

Again: the ONS consultation on whether it should stop publishing information on people who die while homeless is here until March 5. Please take part and share the link.

Source: Anger as ONS plans to axe data on people who die while homeless


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Way NOT to Work; it’s claimed Boris Johnson’s flagship jobs scheme was rubbish

Boris Johnson: has he been lying AGAIN?

It seems a scheme launched by Boris Johnson to force people into work by cutting their benefits after four weeks actually saw fewer people into jobs than the average.

The target set for the Way to Work scheme was to get 500,000 people into jobs, and the Department for Work and Pensions made a huge “We did it!” announcement five months after the scheme was launched in January.

But this seems to be untrue:

Figures from the Office for National Statistics released last week show that the number of unemployed people finding work actually fell by 148,000 compared with the six months before Way to Work began, despite record numbers of job vacancies.

The government is also facing questions about why it set a target of 500,000 when, on average, nearly 1 million unemployed people have found work during similar periods each year since 2001.

At the end of January, Johnson announced that a “Way to Work drive” would help 500,000 into employment from Universal Credit intensive work search or jobseeker’s allowance, at a time when there were a record 1.2 million vacancies.

Analysis by the Observer of seasonally adjusted figures from the ONS Labour Force Survey shows that 867,310 people moved from unemployment to employment from January to June, with the majority of them finding work before March. In the previous six months, 1,015,954 people moved into work. The average figure for January to June since records began in 2001 is 948,000.

The DWP has doubled down, claiming that Way to Work did successfully support half a million people into work.

A spokesperson said there had been fewer unemployed people overall in the labour market, so the amount of people moving from unemployed to employed was understandably lower.

But the Office for Statistics Regulation has warned that there is no clear explanation of how the Way to Work target was defined, how it would be measured, and the methods used to support claims that the target had been reached.

It said measuring government programmes in a robust and transparent way is important, and the statistics and data underpinning any measurement should uphold principles of being trustworthy, of high quality and offer public value – but the way the Department has communicated information in this case does not uphold these principles.

Stephen Timms, Labour chair of the work and pensions select committee, was quoted by The Guardian, saying the committee would be looking at the figures as part of an inquiry when MPs return in the autumn.

“The refusal to set out the evidence behind the claim, unfortunately, is par for the course at the moment… To claim that their policy has been a success seems like business as usual. There might be something more that we’re missing. If there is, they need to tell us what it is.”

It seems that, even though he is quitting as prime minister, Boris Johnson’s falsehoods will continue to plague us for some time to come.

Source: Boris Johnson’s flagship jobs scheme was a failure, new figures reveal

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Sunak is reported to statistics watchdog for misleading the public about poverty increase

Rishi Sunak: misleading on poverty.

Here’s another lie from the Party of Liars:

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has been reported to the UK’s statistics watchdog over Labour claims he misled the public by saying the number of people in poverty is falling – at a time when internationally recognised measures show it has risen by 1.5 million under Tory rule.

Shadow chief secretary to the Treasury Bridget Phillipson said the “cowardly” chancellor was corroding public trust by trying to cover up the truth on “appalling” inequalities which have seen the numbers of children in poverty rise to 4.2 million.

Boris Johnson has been repeatedly rapped over the knuckles by the watchdog over his claims that poverty has fallen under the Tories, with Office for Statistics Regulation chief Ed Humpherson issuing a formal warning to Downing Street only last month that the prime minister’s cherry-picking of statistical measures was getting in the way of public understanding of the problem.

Sunak will escape without any real punishment, no matter how severe his offence.

The fun is in finding out how ridiculous his excuse will be.

Source: Rishi Sunak facing probe over use of poverty statistics | The Independent

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Gove rebuked for fiddling the figures on post-Brexit trade

The UK Statistics Authority has delivered an official reprimand to Michael Gove and his Cabinet Office for faking the figures on post-Brexit trade.

The Road Haulage Association published the results of a survey in February, showing that the volume of exports to the EU fell by more than two-thirds (68 per cent) in January, immediately after the UK finally severed its membership of the European Union.

Gove’s Cabinet Office then pretended that the RHA was wrong, stating that “inbound and outbound flows (across all UK ports) were close to normal, at 95% outbound and 96% inbound, in spite of the impact of Covid lockdowns on trade.”

The UKSA’s reprimand pointed out that the Cabinet Office’s response contained “claims based on unpublished data, and as such these figures cannot be verified”.

Worse still, it referred only to “flows” of lorries, and not to the amount of freight they were carrying.

It is entirely possible that the number of lorries going out to the EU was almost as high from January 1 onwards as they had been before.

But the claim that exports had dropped by two-thirds is also likely to be true if most of those lorries were empty – and they were.

Gove has been caught trying to mislead the public over this important issue. By rights he should resign. But does anybody think he will?

Source: UK Statistics Authority rebukes Gove over Brexit figures | Brexit | The Guardian

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Coronavirus: the Tories have LIED about the daily death toll – INCREASING fears. Why?

Take a look at this headline:

Is it working? UK records 43 coronavirus deaths in past 24 hours compared to 87 yesterday

You can see it in situ by following the link at the bottom of the article. It was a Daily Mail headline on March 25.

It’s a lie, of course – but this time the Mail doesn’t seem to be to blame.

No, this time it’s the Tory government who seem to be at fault.

It wasn’t realistic for the government to claim that the number of deaths had halved, so early in the pandemic’s residence in the UK.

So the BBC’s Newsnight questioned it – and was told by the government that that it cannot add deaths to the total as they happen, because it has to obtain the permission of each family before it can do so.

This is not true.

There is no law – covering data protection or otherwise – requiring family members to give their permission before a death can be added to the total attributed to the coronavirus.

It’s just a number, you see; no personal details are being passed on.

The government had also changed the time at which the number of new deaths was reported, meaning there had been a shorter period between reports.

And according to Skwawkbox, it seems deaths at home, in care homes and in hospital A&E units have also been omitted.

Why indeed – in response to both questions.

Figures for the following day (March 26) showed an increase of 115 – more than on both the previous two days – showing that the number of fatalities is still increasing.

So the only logical reason for the Tories to lie is contradicted – the number of deaths per day clearly is not falling.

So if we have learnt anything, it is that we cannot trust the figures the Conservative government is providing; the true figure may be much higher than they have said.

So, far from allaying fears about the deadliness of the virus, Boris Johnson and his cronies have only increased them.

Source: Coronavirus UK: Daily death toll halves, rising by 43 to 465 | Daily Mail Online

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DWP to collect statistics on ‘food insecurity’ – but why should we believe the results?

Has anybody noticed how the Department for Work and Pensions contracts out the dirty work of benefit assessments to organisations that have proved untrustworthy – but can’t even be trusted to collect and release its own statistics in an appropriate way?

Congratulations to South Shields Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck for getting the DWP to agree to measure the number of people who don’t have enough to eat, as part of a national survey carried out every year. It will refer to people who either can’t afford to buy sufficient food or are worried about their ability to buy food in the future.

But will these figures see the light of day? The DWP doesn’t seem to have published any responses to “Freedom of Information” requests since March 2016.

And if it is being asked to release information that makes the government look bad – such as, for example, statistics showing the police had shared information on disabled people attending public protests – the DWP seems simply to refuse to answer.

We know people have been forced to steal in order to feed their families, due to kack-handed DWP benefits incompetence.

And famished children have been caught stealing from school lunchboxes in incidents we may link with DWP policies.

Does anyone really think the DWP will admit information that connects these events with government policies?


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NHS bosses ordered trusts: Lie to the public about scale of winter crisis – claim

[Image: Science Photo Library.]

It seems we have all been deceived, and the scale of the crisis facing emergency medicine may be greater than first thought.

Emails from NHS Improvement told Trusts to boost their treatment figures by including data from walk-in centres, in conflict with guidance issued by NHS England in 2015.

It means trusts’ performance since last October, when the first email was sent, may have been artificially inflated.

The UK Statistics Authority has demanded an explanation.

Crucially, This Writer wants to know who ordered the changes – and why.

NHS hospital trusts in England may have to recalculate A&E performance figures from last October onwards.

The UK Statistics Authority has told NHS England to explain changes to the recording of A&E data.

It says the changes – highlighted by BBC News – could have left people reaching “misleading conclusions”.

They raise questions over some trusts’ performance on the highest profile NHS performance target – that patients in A&E are seen within four hours.

The official target requires 95% of patients to be treated, assessed or discharged within four hours, a figure the NHS has failed to meet since July 2015.

A hospital trust’s performance figures include the main accident and emergency department (known as Type 1) and minor injuries or care centres (known as Type 3).

These centres tend to see and treat patients a lot more quickly than those needing emergency care.

Data in these clinics tends to pull up the overall performance of a trust. This is confirmed by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.

The BBC has seen emails sent by NHS Improvement, the body responsible for overseeing trusts, in October last year.

The implication is that including these centres would help improve overall performance.

This, and another email sent later in October by NHS Improvement, was seen by trusts as a request to add in data from walk-in centres not run by them and not on hospital grounds.

This is in direct conflict with clear guidance issued in November 2015 by NHS England, which says walk-in centre data can be included only if the trust has clinical responsibility for the service or if it co-located on the trust’s grounds.

Source: A&E stats may have to be recalculated


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Labour reports Boris Johnson to statistics watchdog over ‘misleading’ comments about Brexit

Boris Johnnson has not only stood by the controversial figure but now says it is too low [Image: Leon Neal, used by the Daily Mirror].

Misleading? It’s a downright lie.

Here’s the background, from the Daily Mirror:

Labour have reported Boris Johnson to the UK’s statistics watchdog, after he said the discredited claim that leaving the EU would mean Britain gets £350m a week extra to spend on the NHS was an under-estimate.

The Foreign Secretary claimed the official Vote Leave campaign could have used an even higher figure on their infamous red bus during the referendum campaign.

He said: “There was an error on the side of the [Vote Leave] bus. We grossly underestimated the sum over which we would be able to take back control.”

Mr Johnson claimed the UK’s gross contribution would increase to £438 million by the end of the proposed transition period in 2021.

Here‘s the letter from Keir Starmer to Sir David Norgrove, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority:

Foreign Secretary’s comments about the UK’s financial contribution to the EU

I am writing to seek clarification on comments made by the Foreign Secretary yesterday [15 January] about the UK’s financial contribution to the European Union (EU).

In an interview with The Guardian the Foreign Secretary said: “There was an error on the side of the [Vote Leave] bus. We grossly underestimated the sum over which we would be able to take back control.”

The newspaper reports that “Johnson argued that the UK’s EU contribution was already up to £362m per week for 2017-18 and would rise annually to £410m, £431m, and then to £438m by 2020-21 – ‘theoretically the last year of the transition period.’”

The £350m a week claim made by the Vote Leave campaign has been widely condemned as inaccurate and misleading. For example, in September of last year the Statistics Authority wrote to the Foreign Secretary saying, “it is a clear misuse of official statistics.” And yet, Mr Johnson has chosen to repeat this statement and expand on the claim even further. I do not believe this to be acceptable.

I would therefore be grateful if you could make a statement on the accuracy of the Foreign Secretary’s most recent comments.

This Writer can’t wait for the reply. Can you?


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Why did MPs fail to quiz minister on ESA suicide stats?

This seems a reprehensible – but all-too-typical – dereliction of duty by MPs on all sides of Parliament.

Labour’s shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, Debbie Abrahams, is usually red-hot on this subject, and I wonder if she has been notified and asked to seek explanation, at least with regard to those members of her own party who – it seems – couldn’t be bothered to ask the obvious questions.

Nine MPs on a Commons committee are refusing to explain why they failed to ask the minister for disabled people about shocking figures that suggest attempted suicides among people claiming out-of-work disability benefits doubled between 2007 and 2014.

The work and pensions select committee was passed the figures by Disability News Service (DNS) a few days before Sarah Newton gave evidence last month.

But despite being promised that the figures had “informed the briefing” prepared for the MPs on the committee ahead of the minister’s evidence session – and Labour MP Neil Coyle telling DNS that he was “sure it will be raised” – no effort was made to ask Newton about them.

And this week, none of the nine committee members who attended the session – Labour’s Frank Field, who chairs the committee, Coyle (pictured), Ruth George and Stephen McCabe, Tory MPs Heidi Allen, Andrew Bowie, Alex Burghart and Chris Green, and SNP’s Chris Stephens – would explain why they failed to ask the minister about the figures.

Instead, they hid behind the committee’s media officer, who accused DNS of trying to “circumvent” her by asking the MPs individually why they failed to raise the issue with Newton.

Source: MPs refuse to explain failure to quiz minister on ESA suicide stats


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DWP ‘manipulated Access to Work figures to hide cuts and harassment’ – quelle surprise

Why is the DWP not under continual criticism for the way it collects and presents statistics?  The intention is always to put forward the best possible impression of the Department – and never to present the facts in a clear, usable way.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been accused of manipulating statistics in an attempt to hide the ongoing barriers, cuts and harassment experienced by disabled people seeking support from a key disability employment programme.

The claims followed the release of new figures which showed the number of disabled people approved every year for support from the Access to Work (AtW) programme had fallen by 15 per cent under seven years of Conservative rule.

The scheme has been repeatedly praised as an effective way of supporting disabled people in work and ensuring they keep their jobs, and provides funding for work-related support such as aids and equipment, communication support, travel to work, physical adaptations to a workplace, and hiring support workers.

Deaf and disabled campaigners cast grave doubt last night (Wednesday) on the figures and suggested DWP was attempting to camouflage continuing cuts to people’s support.

Although the figures show the number of people who had support packages approved in each year, they do not include those who continue to receive AtW support without the need for reassessment, or show how many people lost their support or had it cut after being reassessed.

This means it is impossible to know how many disabled people are currently receiving AtW compared with previous years, or how the average level of support packages have risen or fallen.

Ellen Clifford (pictured, right), Inclusion London’s campaigns and policy manager, said DWP’s document “takes creative use of statistics to a whole new level of unreality”.

She said the motivation for changing the way the statistics were collated could only be to disguise what was really happening “because they now provide a much less clear picture of how many people the scheme is benefiting… The manipulation of figures in this way suggests the DWP has something to hide”.

Source: DWP ‘manipulated Access to Work figures to hide cuts and harassment’


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