Official watchdog has responded to a rise in complaints from politicians and the public about misuse of figures
Politicians and senior civil servants have been publicly called to account for the misuse of government figures on 47 occasions by the official statistics watchdog, its latest casework review shows.
Former health secretary Matt Hancock’s use of data on Covid testing and Scottish health secretary Humza Yousaf’s use of unpublished statistics were among the cases raised by the UK Statistics Authority. So far this year, the watchdog has also intervened with concerns over crime spending figures used by Boris Johnson in July and crime statistics used by Sir Keir Starmer in May.
