The UK Statistics Authority wrote to Paul O’Kane MSP about Scottish Government child poverty statistics

25 June 2024 · Sir Robert Chote, Chair, UK Statistics Authority

The letter, dated 25 June 2024, replies to correspondence of 16 May 2024. The UK Statistics Authority published it as Letter from Sir Robert Chote to Paul O’Kane MSP: Scottish Government child poverty statistics; it links to 2 official records. Below are 4 passages from the letter in the regulator's own words.

What the UK Statistics Authority wrote

“Under the principles of intelligent transparency, it is always advisable to think how an average person would interpret a high-profile quantitative claim of this sort so as to minimise the danger of them being misled and thereby trust in similar statements being undermined.”

“In this instance, the First Ministers were referring to a modelled estimate of the difference between the level of relative child poverty expected in 2024/25 and the level that we would have seen in the absence of a number of policy measures (as set out in footnote 4 of the updated Cumulative Impact Assessment).”

“The Scottish Government set out the methodology behind this comparison in an annex to its Cumulative Impact Assessment in 2022 and the 100,000 estimate comes from the update published in 2024.”

“This kind of analysis is a reasonable way to estimate the impact of Scottish Government policies on child poverty, even though, just like alternative estimates, the calculations are bound to be uncertain and dependent to some degree on methodological choices.”

From Sir Robert Chote, Chair, UK Statistics Authority, letter of 25 June 2024. Read the full letter.

Records the letter links to

• footnote 4 (gov.scot)
• annex to its Cumulative Impact Assessment in 2022

Correspondence

• The letter it answered: Paul O’Kane MSP to Sir Robert Chote – Scottish Government child poverty statistics (16 May 2024)

More on Paul O’Kane.

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