Figures on immigrant landing jobs criticised

The UK’s statistics watchdog criticised the Office for National Statistics yesterday for the way it published figures that highlight the growing number of migrants getting jobs while the British workforce declines. 

Sir Michael Scholar said that the figures lacked analysis to help the public to understand them. 

However, he rejected suggestions that Karen Dunnell, the national statistican, had brought forward publication last month as a political act intended to embarrass the Prime Minister. 

Sir Michael, chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, which oversees the ONS, said: “I have already rejected any suggestion of political motivation in the steps ONS took.”

In February ONS brought

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forward the release of figures on the number of foreign-born workers in the economy because of their “topicality” at a time when construction workers took part in wildcat strikes at power stations about jobs going to foreigners. 

Publication of the figures provoked a furious row, with The Times reporting that ministers were “fizzing” with anger. 

One senior government source told The Times that the ONS decision to highlight the figures appeared to be an attempt to embarrass the Government over the Prime Minister’s slogan of “British jobs for British workers”. 

A report by the UK Statistics Authority said: “On February 10 a decision was made to bring forward the publication of the news release to February 11. This decision was influenced by the level of public interest in the topic but not by other, non-statistical considerations. This is consistent with the code of practice.” 

Sir Michael’s authority rebuked Ms Dunnell and her colleagues at the ONS for a number of failings, including their failure to tell the public that there had been a change to the pre-announced release date. 

The report said that the statistics on the number of foreign workers should have included more supporting information to help the reader to understand them, the context in which they were produced plus their strengths and weaknesses. 

“In this respect we recommend that future such releases should contain both further explanation and further references to supporting documents, in order to meet the expectations of the code of practice,” the report said. 

It would also have been helpful if the ONS had explained that the estimated figures were based on a samply and were subject to variability. “In this respect we recommend that future such releases should contain both further explanation and further references to supporting documents, in order to meet the expectations of the code.” 

Jill Leyland, vice-president of the Royal Statistical Society, said that it was right that the authority was prepared to criticise all breaches of the code.  continues here

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