Britain’s statistics watchdog has called for an end to the culture of spin by stripping ministers of their right to see sensitive official data before it is published.

Ministers should no longer have advance notice of figures on crime trends, unemployment, immigration, benefits, NHS waiting lists and a host of other controversial areas, Sir Michael Scholar, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, said.

Trust in government data would be restored only by letting ministers have it at the same time that it was released to Parliament, the media and the public, he said.

Ministers and advisers are allowed to see official statistics in advance to give them time to prepare their response. But critics say that this allows them to put a political gloss on the figures and even to leak more favourable elements to their advantage. Sir Michael told The Times that he would not hesitate to name politicians who leaked official data early or without figures having been checked fully by statisticians.

He said that the solution lay in scrapping rules that allow ministers and their political advisers to see official statistics 24 hours before publication. Sir Michael called for this to fall to three hours and, eventually, to a position where they are released to everyone at the same time.

“I think the correct principle is everybody should get the figures at the same time: ministers, Parliament, the press, the public,” he said. “Until it is like that, the public will always be thinking that politicians have been able to get at the figures.”

He is also trying to persuade departments to “prune” the list of people who see statistics in advance and for important and sensitive figures to be released at premises away from Whitehall ministries to underline their independence.

Sir Michael clashed with Downing Street last month when he attacked the Home Office for releasing figures apparently showing a fall in knife crime, saying that they were “premature, irregular and selective”, and calling the move corrosive of public trust in such data.

Distrust of official figures was long standing, he told The Times. “The temptations to use every available argument and every available figure in support of a policy initiative is very strong. I am sure it is stronger than it has ever been with the media working 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.

Future battles were likely to be over economic figures as Britain slides deeper into recession, he predicted.

“If the economy goes in the direction that everybody thinks it is going to go in the next year, there may be very heightened interested in the unemployment figures,” Sir Michael said.

The UK Statistics Authority was set up last April with the aim of promoting and safeguarding official statistics after alarm that a culture of spin had destroyed public trust in the figures. Sir Michael said that its creation was a recognition that the release of official data had to be controlled and policed, and he wanted to get away from any idea that the authority was involved in spin.

“We are not a spin agency in any way. We are antispin,” he said.

Advance access to data

US Maximum 30 minutes

France Generally 1 hour

Ireland Generally 1 hour

Australia 3 hours

Portugal 5 hours

Canada 17-18 hours

Denmark, Norway, Poland None

Source: Royal Statistical Society

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