UK Statistics Authority

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP – Scottish attainment gap

Dear Ms Duncan-Glancy,

Thank you for your letter of 21 March outlining concerns around the First Minister of Scotland’s use of statistics about the poverty-related educational attainment gap. At First Minister’s Questions on 27 February, he said: “the overall poverty-related attainment gap [in Scotland] has reduced by 60 per cent since 2009-10”.

The Scottish Government monitors the attainment gap through a series of thirteen key measures as part of the National Improvement Framework (NIF). Taken together, these are the data by which the Government measures the poverty-related attainment gap and the impact of its education policies.

Scottish Government officials confirmed to us that the 60 per cent figure used by the First Minister was taken from statistics on follow-up leaver destinations. Chart 4 of the supplementary tables shows that the difference in the percentage of school leavers in a positive follow-up destination (nine months after leaving school) between the most deprived and the least deprived has reduced by 60 per cent since 2009-10.

These statistics are not one of the thirteen measures included within the NIF. The Framework does include a similar measure – initial positive destinations of school leavers – which also shows a reduction in the gap between the most and least deprived students since 2009/10. However, both of these statistics measure outcomes once students have left school, not their educational attainment whilst in school.

When making claims about a reduction in the ‘overall’ attainment gap, we would expect the Government to use the NIF to help evidence this, and that this assertion would reflect a reduction in more than one measure relating to attainment. The First Minister should have been clearer that he was referring to a specific set of statistics to evidence his claim, particularly as it was based on data which is not part of the NIF.

To maintain trust and confidence in their statements, Ministers should take care that when they claim progress of their policies it is by their own defined measures, or otherwise clearly explain the source of separate data so that it is readily accessible for policy experts and the public to understand. We have raised these matters with the First Minister’s office.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote
Chair

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Jeremy Balfour MSP – Health and Wellbeing Census Scotland

Dear Mr Balfour,

Thank you for your letter of 27 February 2025.

We are pleased that the Scottish Government has now published the Health and Wellbeing Census Scotland: Background Report. We consider that this document provides valuable information to users and demonstrates that the Scottish Government has reviewed its approach to developing questions for the Health and Wellbeing Census as the OSR requested in its letter of 27 July 2022.

As you set out, a thorough review of the legal and ethical status of the survey lies more so within the remit of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) to decide on and undertake. From our discussions with ICO, we understand that they presently have no plans for a further review, beyond their engagement and action to date. It is also worth clarifying that because ICO could only act in relation to compliance with data protection law, some of the issues you have raised, such as the ethical use of opt-outs, are outside the regulatory remit of both ICO and OSR.

However, if they judge that a joint review is necessary, we are willing to help. I am grateful that your scrutiny of the Health and Wellbeing Census has encouraged closer working links between OSR and ICO.

The concerns that you and your constituents raised have clearly been justified by the lessons learned by all parties in this case. If the Scottish Government or other statistics producers decide to run another survey of this nature, we will work closely with ICO to ensure that it is done to the highest standards.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote
Chair

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Matt Vickers MP – police workforce figures

Dear Mr Vickers,

Thank you for your letter of 21 February regarding the use of police workforce statistics by Dame Diana Johnson, Minister of State for Police, Crime and Fire.

The claim in question was made during the debate on the Police Grant Report on 5 February 2025. The Minister stated,

“there were 149,769 police officers in March 2024, but in June – when the Conservative Government were still in power – that figure had been reduced by 1,232 to 148,536 officers.”

We examined this and determined that the figures cited by the Minister were published on 22 January 2025 as an annex in the Police workforce: 30 September 2024 bulletin. As such, the figures were publicly available at the time the claim was made.

However, we note that these figures are published management information rather than part of the regular statistics on police numbers, and so were not included or referred to in the separate data tables accompanying the bulletin.

We have discussed this approach with Home Office statisticians and will continue to support them in finding the best ways to publish management information outside of regular statistical releases, so that they are readily accessible when ministers and officials use them publicly. Thank you again for raising this matter with us.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote
Chair

Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP to Sir Robert Chote – Scottish attainment gap

Dear Sir Robert,

Scottish Government Attainment Gap Statistics

I am writing to seek the assistance of the UK Statistics Authority in establishing the accuracy of claims made by the First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney MSP, regarding the Scottish Government’s progress on closing Scotland’s poverty-related attainment gap. These claims appear to be at odds with the statistical evidence available and now risk misleading the Parliament and general public.

At First Minister’s Questions on 27 February 2025, Mr Swinney stated that “the overall poverty-related attainment gap has reduced by 60 per cent since 2009-10”. The statement has drawn attention from the public and the media and gives the impression that overall educational inequality has significantly improved — an assertion which has since been publicly challenged.

The Ferret Fact Service has investigated this claim and concluded it to be “mostly false”, noting that there is no agreed overall measure of the attainment gap in Scotland and that the First Minister’s claim is based solely on the measure of “positive destinations” — a metric which refers to the number of school leavers going on to further education, training, or commencing employment. This means the claim fails to account for progress, or lack thereof, in other key areas of educational attainment, such as National 5 and Higher exam results, achievement against Curriculum for Excellence levels, and performance against key literacy and numeracy benchmarks.

In many of these other measures, the gap between pupils from the most and least deprived backgrounds has either narrowed only modestly or remained largely unchanged. As such, I believe it to be highly misleading to describe a 60% reduction in one narrow metric as reflecting an “overall” closure of the attainment gap.

When statistics are used to justify policy decisions that directly affect the lives of children and young people, they must be presented with accuracy and honesty. Misrepresenting such data — intentionally or through omission — undermines public confidence, risks eroding trust in our public institutions, and undermines the serious work required to tackle long-standing inequality in our education system.

I would therefore welcome your views on:

Whether the First Minister’s claim that the “overall” attainment gap has reduced by 60% is a misleading use of official statistics; and
Whether the Scottish Government has sufficiently justified its use of this figure, especially given its decision to use a single outcome measure rather than a comprehensive overview of educational attainment.

I would also welcome any guidance you may wish to offer to ensure that statistics relating to sensitive and multi-dimensional issues, such as the poverty-related attainment gap — where public trust in government data is paramount — are not presented in a misleading way.

I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely

Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP
Member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow Region (Scottish Labour Party)
Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Education

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Mark Griffin MSP – figures on Scottish Planning Approvals

Dear Mr Griffin,

Thank you for your letter regarding the claim made by the Minister for Public Finance on 12 November 2024 that

“164,000 homes across Scotland have planning permission but are not yet built”.

As noted in your letter, the supporting data was subsequently published in response to your Parliamentary Questions, but this should not be used as a standard approach for releasing data. According to the principles of intelligent transparency, data should be available publicly at the same time that officials make statements based on it, with an explanation of context, sources, and limitations. The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has raised this issue with the Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician, who has explained that he is currently raising the profile of intelligent transparency beyond the statistics profession within the Scottish Government to ensure that these principles are embedded across Government. The OSR will be working closely with the Chief Statistician to support him in these efforts.

The data for this claim are based on Housing Land Audits data which is sourced from local authorities. We agree that the quality of this data remains unclear based on the limited information included in the response to your Parliamentary Question. Future uses of this claim should clearly indicate that this is a high-level estimate.

We understand that there is a long-term plan to improve the data and statistics on housing in Scotland. The OSR will continue to engage with the Scottish Government as this development work progresses, to ensure that the standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics are adhered to.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote
Chair

Matt Vickers MP to Sir Robert Chote – police workforce figures

Dear Mr Chote,

I am writing to formally complain about the use of unpublished statistics by the Minister of State for Police, Crime and Fire during a statement made in the House of Commons chamber when closing the debate on the Police Funding Settlement on 5^th February 2025.

During the statement, the Minister cited a police workforce figure “had been reduced by 1,232 to 148,536 officers” in June, despite the official publication schedule dictating that police workforce statistics are only released in March and September. As I understand it, the release of this figure is a clear breach of established statistical protocols and raises concerns about the proper and transparent use of official statistics.

The UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice for Statistics emphasises the importance of orderly release and preventing the misuse of statistics. The Minister’s announcement appears to contravene these principles by disclosing unpublished figures without making them publicly available in a consistent and transparent manner. As I understand it, no previous publications of police headcount numbers were announced in the month of June in previous years – making it impossible for trends or changes to be compared.

I request that the UK Statistics Authority investigates this matter and provides clarification on whether the Minister’s actions were in line with the Code of Practice. Additionally, I would appreciate a response outlining any steps the Authority may take to ensure ministers adhere to proper statistical procedures in the future.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. I look forward to your response.

Yours sincerely,

Matt Vickers
Member of Parliament for Stockton West
Shadow Minister of State for Police, Crime and Fire

Jeremy Balfour MSP to Sir Robert Chote – Health and Wellbeing Census Scotland

Dear Sir Robert

Thank you for your response to my letter of 19 Dec 2024. My constituents are grateful that after 30 months, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) is following up its original request to the Scottish government to publish a review around the legal and ethical governance arrangements relating to the Scottish Health and Wellbeing Census for school children.

In your letter, you clarify that the original requested review relates only to the questions for each age range, rather than a “review of the survey and data governance processes as a whole”. A more thorough review would, obviously, cover elements that are within the remit of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

My constituents appreciate you are only able to act within your remit. However, whether the questions for each age range are legal or ethical, depends on the entire context of the survey and the data governance processes. Prof Lindsay Paterson covered this in his ethics briefing on the census. Therefore, a review with the limited scope around questions and age range, could not properly establish the legal and ethical position.

Other factors affecting the legal and ethical position, include the extent to which legal and ethical failings in various areas were accidental or otherwise, and why the research implementation was continued without pausing, when valid concerns were raised by credible organisations and parents. For example, an article in The Times on 6 Dec 21, reported that a Scottish Government spokeswoman’s response to concerns was that it would be “irresponsible to withdraw a census which focusses on children and young people’s health and wellbeing”.

This project has been characterised by misleading statements from the beginning, for example, the same article in The Times, reports that the Scottish Government spokeswoman also said: “Health and wellbeing surveys like this one are not new and play a crucial role in ensuring children and young people have access to the help, advice and services they need”, when of course, no previous survey was directly comparable with this, and it was new for the Scottish Government to gather such data with identity numbers for storing indefinitely for continued cross linking, and attempting to do so with every single child in the country.

Therefore, my constituents are concerned that at this stage, if a siloed legal and ethics review is published that only focuses on the questions and ages they were asked, and it does not address the whole context of the survey and data governance in which the questions were asked, response to valid concerns and what has happened since, then this has the potential to further mislead the public.

To prevent this, and to be of any value, they believe the scope of this review must widen to encompass all concerns that have been identified, including the involvement of the ICO with local authorities in April 2022 and with the Scottish Government since the OSR’s original letter.

They believe the review must also address why the original internal ethics peer review carried out by the Scottish Government was not adequate, and why some advice offered by the Scottish Government’s internal legal and data protection staff appears not to have been followed.

Therefore, I will write to the ICO about this. Can I ask for your support in putting these concerns about the legality and ethics relating to the overall survey and data protection governance to the ICO, and for the need to consider this issue in its entirety, to ensure that the review published by the Scottish Government does not further mislead the public by being incomplete?

Yours sincerely

Jeremy Balfour MSP

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Jeremy Balfour MSP – Health and Wellbeing Census Scotland

Dear Mr Balfour

Thank you for your letter raising your concerns about the Scottish Health and Wellbeing Census (HWBC).

Many of the issues about data governance and sharing procedures discussed by your constituents are out of remit for the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) and fall within the remit of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). However, I have addressed your comments relating to the OSR’s letter to the Scottish Government, published in July 2022.

This letter set out that the Scottish Government needed to review the approach it took to question development including the “legal and ethical governance arrangements that are in place for asking questions of each age range”. Please note that the OSR did not request the Scottish Government to undertake a review of the survey and data governance processes as a whole.

It is regrettable that the outcomes of this review have not yet been made public and the OSR has now written to the Scottish Government to set the expectation that this is rectified within the next 30 days.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote
Chair

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Kieran Mullan MP – statistics on criminal records

Dear Dr Mullan,

Thank you for your letter regarding statements by Lord Timpson OBE, Minister of State for Prisons, Probation and Reducing Reoffending, on the proportion of the population with a criminal record.

The first statement was made by Lord Timpson in the House of Lords on 24 July 2024 and stated that:

“The criminal justice system exists to keep the public safe, but it should not hold back the one in four working-age people in the UK with a criminal record from getting jobs.”

This claim is based on information provided in an ad-hoc release by the Ministry of Justice in October estimating the number of individuals with a nominal record on the Police National Computer. As summarised within the release, there are a number of limitations for these data and the figure of ‘one in four’ should only be used as a high-level estimate.

Your additional concerns related to claims made in an article published by The Times on 9 January 2025. Within the article, the terms ‘criminal record’ and ‘criminal conviction’ are used seemingly interchangeably, which is imprecise – a criminal record is not the same as a criminal conviction – and the claims referring to criminal convictions are therefore not supported by the Ministry of Justice release. Furthermore, the article is also not always clear that the proportion of individuals with a criminal record relates specifically to the working age population (those aged 16-64) and not the whole population.

It is important that when using figures publicly, they are quoted accurately to best support public understanding on these issues. We have raised this matter with Lord Timpson’s office.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote
Chair

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Nick Timothy MP – costs associated with Illegal Migration Act

Dear Mr Timothy,

Thank you for your letter regarding statements made by the Home Secretary on 22 July about a change to the Illegal Migration Act (which would enable the Government to legally begin processing some asylum cases in the UK, rather than being obliged to remove those applicants from the UK first).

Specifically, you raised concerns that some of the estimated savings of £7 billion from this change was calculated by “double counting”: adding the costs of removing some applicants to the estimated costs of instead accommodating them in the UK.

On 22 July the Home Secretary told Parliament:

“Two and a half years after the previous Government launched it, I can report that [the Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership] has already cost the British taxpayer £700 million… Making this one simple change will save the taxpayer an estimated £7 billion over the next 10 years.”

In response to your questions about this part of her statement, the Permanent Secretary of the Home Office wrote to you on 16 August. His letter said that “the Home Secretary’s statement included” the figure of £700 million of costs related to UK-Rwanda Partnership. He then wrote that “further detail is contained” within the Impact Assessment of the change to the law, from which the £7 billion of future savings was calculated. This indicated that the figures of £700 million and £7 billion were related.

Having discussed this issue with the Home Office, we established that the £700 million of costs are not included in the estimated £7 billion of savings outlined in the Impact Assessment and that they cover different time periods. The Permanent Secretary’s letter was not clear about the difference between these two figures, but since then the department has released a further breakdown of the £700 million which makes this more obvious.

It is important that Government correspondence is clear and transparent on issues of great public interest, referring precisely to published data. This enables Parliament and the public to understand and independently scrutinise government decision-making.

Yours sincerely,

Sir Robert Chote
Chair

Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP – Scottish attainment gap

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Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Jeremy Balfour MSP – Health and Wellbeing Census Scotland

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Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Matt Vickers MP – police workforce figures

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Pam Duncan-Glancy MSP to Sir Robert Chote – Scottish attainment gap

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