The wrong statistics

Introduction

Against a backdrop on ongoing controversy, on 26 September the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) Board questioned the Chief Constable about Police Scotland’s policy on recording the sex of offenders. As detailed below, until very recently, this had provided for recording based on self-declared sex, even in cases of sexual offending.

The discussion about published police data among senior members at the Board meeting gave the misleading impression that Police Scotland’s statistics on offenders are more credible than those in England and Wales. In an exchange that did not come across as off the cuff, SPA Chair Martyn Evans hammered home that recorded crime statistics in Scotland are accredited official statistics, whereas those in England and Wales are not.

… My final point is this. It’s a point that Alistair made. In Scotland, police recorded statistics are official accredited statistics. That is a very important matter for the Authority.

In England, they are not accredited. They’re not good enough to be accredited and haven’t had accreditation since 2014. I think we should be very proud that our official statistics, police and crime statistics are official and accredited…

[That status is] down to the quality of data gathering and data recording by police. [see 37:05]

This cross-border comparison was, however, entirely irrelevant to any discussion on recording of sex/gender, because recorded crime statistics do not contain data on offenders. As the Scottish Government User Guide to Recorded Crime explains (emphasis added):

the Scottish Government collects aggregated numbers of crimes and offences from Police Scotland, meaning that no information about victims, perpetrators or the individual crimes or offences and incidents are available.

The blog below provides more details about the Board meeting, official statistics, and the types of data under discussion.

How did the confusion arise

To better understand how this confusion about the relevant statistics arose within the body tasked with holding Police Scotland to account, we submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the SPA.

Based on the information provided by the Authority, the response suggests that the spotlight on accreditation was most likely instigated by the SPA Chair.

In a WhatsApp message sent on Friday 13 September, Mr Evans asked an SPA official about the status of Scottish recorded crime statistics. A short exchange, as shown below, confirmed the accredited status of Recorded Crime in Scotland. It also shows concerns about a lack of direction from Scottish Government, and whether recorded crime statistics would retain their accredited status without this. As Mr Evans concluded, ‘our police statistics are designated official and we are very keen to maintain that status’.

Scottish Police Authority briefing note

On Monday 16 September, the SPA Deputy Chief Executive for Strategy and Performance asked officials to review the respective status of recorded crime statistics in Scotland, and England and Wales. Internal email exchanges on the same day show some uncertainty about the relevance of recording sex and gender to accreditation, and whether this mattered. For example, the Deputy Chief Executive asked:

It is not immediately obvious whether [Police Scotland] recording of gender will impact this accreditation if at all? By reading between the lines this would appear to be the Chair’s question. Would a recording of female gender on an individual born as male sex be seen as a data quality issue?

In response, an SPA official indicated that, according to a conversation with the Scottish Government, recording men as women was unlikely to be viewed as a problem:

Based on what [Scottish Government] said previously, I don’t think so but that’s a question we can ask of [Scottish Government].

On 18 September, the Deputy Chief Executive asked officials to draw up a briefing note, including a ‘definitive statement whether there is anything in the Code of Practice referring to sex or gender recording’. In response, an official confirmed that the Code did not ‘mention sex or gender recording’.

The final briefing note was shared with Mr Evans and SPA Chief Executive later that day. It is not clear if it was shared with Board members.

Focusing on accreditation status, the briefing covered recorded crime statistics in the two jurisdictions. In addition, it favourably compared the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey, with the Crime Survey for England and Wales, which at the time was not accredited. It is particularly hard to understand the inclusion of the crime surveys. As stated in the briefing itself, these are government surveys that collect data on people’s experiences and perceptions of crime. As such, they are wholly irrelevant to Police Scotland recording practices.

Drawing a parallel between accredited Scottish Government Recorded crime in Scotland statistics with ‘data used by Police Scotland’ more widely, the briefing concluded that the latter was therefore accurate.

5.1 As outlined above, recorded crime data published in the UK is currently only designated as accredited official statistics in Scotland. This accreditation provides assurance that the data used by Police Scotland, the Authority and partners is accurate, and that good arrangements are in place to produce, validate, and publish these figures in a way that is meaningful and easily understood.

5.2 A current focus in crime recording is consideration of the collection and reporting of data relating to sex and gender identity. It is not expected that any development in this area will impact on accreditation of reported statistics in Scotland. The Code of Practice for Statistics does not refer specifically to sex and gender, however its standards around accuracy, transparency and effective analysis of data will need to be adhered to when making any changes to current practice.

The wrong statistics

At the SPA Board meeting on 26 September the Chair sought to robustly defend the quality of recorded crime statistics in Scotland, drawing a favourable comparison with England and Wales, as per the briefing note. Yet as noted above, the recorded crime statistics referenced by Mr Evans had no bearing on the topic under discussion, namely how Police Scotland record the sex/gender of suspects and offenders.

The information since disclosed via our Freedom of Information request shows that this was not a slip or mix-up by the Chair. It suggests that Mr Evans reached his initial view on the relevance of accreditation more than ten days ahead of the Board meeting. Under the direction of the SPA Deputy Chief Executive, officials then drew up a supportive briefing note that failed to interrogate the relevance of recorded crime data, and added more irrelevant information on the respective crime surveys.

Conclusion

In our earlier blog, we concluded that for the purposes of undertaking its scrutiny role, the SPA needs to get a much better handle on the nature of the data and statistics that it is discussing. This blog strongly reinforces that conclusion. How Police Scotland record sex and gender has been a matter of controversy since 2019. As such, it is quite remarkable that, ahead of a public Board meeting on this issue, SPA officials prepared a briefing, favourable to Police Scotland, about statistics that had no bearing on the question in hand.

In the interests of accuracy and to avoid misinterpretation, we think that the SPA needs to make clear that recorded crime statistics do not include data on the sex or gender of offenders, and that the Chair’s remarks, in the specific context of the discussion at the public Board meeting, were misplaced.

Lastly, the SPA needs to revisit the issues that it did identify. Above all, working from first principles, instead of through an accreditation lens, it needs to decide, for itself, whether it believes that accurate police data on sex matters.