Useless Crime Stats

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2008

Useless Crime Stats

Production of platform boots is booming!

On Monday we blogged yet more evidence that the government's serious crime stats are useless. Just three days later, we get even more evidence.

It turns out the police recorded crime stats have been hugely under-recording serious violent crime for a decade. In consequence, the total for murder, attempted murder, manslaughter and severe assaults has suddenly leaped by 22%.

Naturally the commissars blame dim coppers for not following the State Statistical Bureau's detailed 15,000 page data manufacturing manual to the letter. But as we've said many times, when you ask people to fill in their own high stakes tractor production scorecards, you're bound to get gaming problems like this. Which is one very good reason for disbelieving the official stats.

The Prog Con is aghast. Chief spokesman BBC Easton says:

"Today's statistical fiasco does not demonstrate that serious crime is soaring whatever you may read in the papers. If anything, serious violence in England and Wales is probably stable or even falling... 

...The real disaster with this is that it will increase people's distrust of the data and millions will go on believing they are at increased risk of violence."

Translation: we don't need facts to support our view that serious violent crime is coming down; if only you silly little people out there would listen to us, instead of demanding "proof", your lives would be so much better.

If you can be bothered to read the latest tractor stats, they're here.

Police Sickies

Evenin' all... did I ever tell you about my bad back?

This morning the Times gives us an update on police sick leave:

"Police forces lost more than one million days to long-term sick leave last year at a record cost of nearly £90 million... The cost has soared by more than 20 per cent in the past five years despite a drive within the police to reduce prolonged sick absences... stress, depression, back pain and other musculo-skeletal disorders are mainly responsible."

We've blogged this before, and despite another huge bureaucratic programme to reduce the problem, it's clearly got worse. As the TPA's Matthew Elliott comments:

"The model of running the nation’s policing off a spreadsheet in Whitehall is failing the police and the public. Central mismanagement has produced a system so tangled with red tape and targets that good officers are being driven into illness."

The really shocking point is that when it comes to sickies, the police are amongthe best of the public sector workforces. They take an average of 8.3 days pa, whereas across the whole public sector the average is 9.8 days pa.

And some bits are much worse. When last sighted, average sick leave in the NHS was running at two and a half weeks pa (12 days pa), and in some HMRC offices it averages nearly five weeks pa.

For comparison, sick leave in the private sector averages 7.2 days pa.

As we've blogged many times, you can't entirely blame backsliding lead-swinging public sector workers. The fundamental cause is poor management.

In Tyler's experience, few managers ever enjoy confronting poor performers, be they in the public or private sectors. But in the public sector, managers know they can expect no support from the top. This government has actively undermined its managers through half-baked programmes to root out supposed discrimination and bullying. Tackling underperformance hasn't had a look in.

Taxpayers are reaping what the government has sown.

PS And let's not forget the Tory MP who worked in the City while on a sickie from the Commons.