Trust in statistics high but political misrepresentation fears remain, says report
ALMOST half of people who indicated distrust in official statistics said they felt figures were being misrepresented by politicians, according to a survey.
The latest Public Confidence in Official Statistics report found that trust in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) remains high compared with other institutions in British public life.
Some 87% of adults surveyed in 2023 indicated they trust the ONS, slightly down from 89% in 2021.
This was followed by the courts (82%), Bank of England (79%) and the civil service (75%).
Trust in both Parliament (36%) and Government (31%) fell, from 49% and 42% respectively in 2021, while trust in the media grew slightly from 23% to 25%.
Some 85% of respondents said they had trust in ONS statistics – a similar level to 2021, while some 12% of respondents said they “tend not to trust them” and 2% said they “distrust them greatly”.
Of the proportion who expressed distrust, the most frequently chosen reasons were that the statistics were being misrepresented by politicians (49%), that the statistics alone do not tell the whole story (45%) and that the Government has a vested interest in, or manipulates, the results (41%).
The National Centre for Social Research (Natcen), which is commissioned by the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) to carry out the research every two years, said these findings were consistent with the low levels of trust people reported they had in the UK Parliament and the Government.
Some 2,364 people aged 18 and over were surveyed across 1,695 households in England, Scotland and Wales.
In December, Rishi Sunak was challenged over his claims to have reduced public debt by the chief of the UK’S statistics watchdog.
The Prime Minister had said that “debt is falling” in a social media video and that “we have indeed reduced debt” at Prime Minister’s Questions the previous month.
But the chairman of the UKSA, Sir Robert Chote, suggested the average person “would likely have assumed that he was claiming that debt was already falling or that the Government’s policy decisions had lowered it at the fiscal events – neither of which is the case”.
In a letter at the time to the
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, Sir Robert said: “This has clearly been a source of confusion and may have undermined trust in the Government’s use of statistics and quantitative analysis.”
In January, the Home Office was reprimanded by the UKSA after the Government was accused of lying about clearing part of the asylum backlog. Sir Robert warned that episode “may affect public trust” after the UKSA investigated complaints received about Mr Sunak’s claim ministers had “cleared” the outstanding cases.