Requirement Assessment Team feedback User Guide We recognise
Contents
1. classifications for the year 2013 14 or future years Since it is due to be published at the same time as or after the 2013 14 bulletin it therefore does not give users advance warning of future changes to the data User Guide The Guide presents helpful information about the extent and nature of changes made to police recorded crime data and the reasons why Scottish Government has been unable to quantify the extent of changes in the past It is helpful for users to know that you will be reconsidering this in light of the new IT systems that are being implemented in Police Scotland Bulletin Will there be more detailed information on the impact of changes in crime classifications and the nature and extent of revisions in the final version of the bulletin or will it link to the relevant section within the User Guide Technical Report Technical Report The tables showing the magnitude of the revisions being made due to the introduction of SCOMIS are useful although this information could be made clearer The text in the report can be repetitive which can make it more difficult for the user to get a clear understanding of what the main issues are There is also no revisions policy for these statistics The report explains what revisions were made for this year but not what the policy for revisions will be in future years User Guide We can see that Section 3 includes broad descriptions about the roles of Police Scotland the SPA HM2. useful to ensure that Annex 1 of the Assessment Report is considered when the commentary is drafted We note that the bulletin has moved to presenting statistics by Local Authority instead of legacy police force and the section we have seen includes some further detail about the statistics and charts to illustrate the statistics for users Some charts need titles reviewed when you are doing another proofread Further comments on the extract are below Overall trends in recorded crime there is scope to include more commentary to help users understand possible reasons for the trends in recorded crime since 1971 Chart 1 presents key changes that could affect the numbers of crimes recorded over time but this could be supplemented by further context in the supporting commentary In addition the trends in recorded crimes should be supplemented by the trends in the number of offences recorded lover time to provide context to users in understanding how the numbers of recorded offences is related i e could a decrease in recorded crimes be partly explained by an increase in offences reported has a change to the SCRS affected this Without this information there is a risk that the statistics will present only part lof the picture Local authority analysis The charts are helpful to present some lof the differences across Local Authorities Could more context be added For example are any of the changes over time linked to specifi
3. C or when the results from the two sources differ and why User Guide You have included information primarily in Section 9 of the Guide to help address this Requirement Overall the related information in the Guide is a little confusing as different elements of quality are addressed throughout the document they could be brought together into section 9 or more clearly signposted from it In addition the level of detail about the assurance mechanism is quite broad and not supported by evidence in the way the text is currently presented The Framework of Assurance document should provide further detail but this could also be reflected in the Guide Specific examples of the lack of detail includes e Scottish Government checks data across legacy police force areas to ensure consistency and confirming local differences and comparing figures year on year investigating where substantial differences appear It would be useful to describe what SG consider as substantial Once the Police are happy that the final resulting data are an accurate reflection of police activity within each financial year period then the data is signed off and considered ready for publication What is meant by this How do they sign off the data In addition to the rigorous quality assurance work that is already undertaken JAS can now quality assure the individual quarters It would be helpful to explain what you mean by rigor
4. ICS etc but the descriptions are quite brief in places For example e You could say more about their roles in the production of SG s statistics for example how Police Scotland aggregate the data how often do they submit data to SG how do they QA their own data how is their analysis team structured etc Some of these questions may be answered by the Technical Report or Framework of assurance documentation but if they don t they should and elements of this could be reflected here e The information about the roles of the Crime Registrars is very brief again you may plan to cover this in other pieces of documentation but it feels appropriate to include further information here We would expect this to include information about how the Crime Registrars are scrutinised and by whom e It was fairly unclear in the Guide how these organisations are linked to each other and what their remits are Perhaps a diagram with supporting text would help to serve this purpose e Asan overall comment there seemed to be some duplication across sections 3 and 4 of the Guide so you could consider combining the sections and removing duplication and improve the cross referencing to other related sections of the Guide as well as to links of relevant published information Bulletin Does SG plan to meet this requirement in full by information presented in the User Guide Document and publish how those How does SG plan t
5. Lng tet E E e Assessment Team feedback a Engage regularly with a wider range of less expert users of these statistics outside of the Scottish Government s key stakeholders b Ensure that both expert and non expert users are consulted about changes to the statistics through an early and comprehensive consultation c Publish the results of the user consultation Publish more detailed information about the uses users and users iews of the police recorded crime statistics 3 la Develop a statistical work plan annually b Consult users on the priorities set out in the plan c Publish the Justice Analytical Services Division Analytical Programme as soon as it has been approved by the relevant Minister in the future a Inform users about the ongoing work with Police Scotland and the SPA to develop a consistent publication plan b Consult more widely about users need for more frequent statistics User Guide We recognise that you have included a section in the Guide specifically related to users and uses We would encourage you to make this section more prominent by introducing it earlier as it is currently section 19 of 21 given the purpose of the document We have some more specific observations More specific information should be included on who the actual users are and what they are using the data for what decisions do the statistics inform and what are the potential uses of the data You have included a lot o
6. c policing priorities e g are police in Shetland targeting vandalism And more analysis on longer term trends ould be useful Are any of these increases or decreases sudden changes or are they all gradual changes over the last few years There is scope for more context to be included to explain the largest increases and decreases for example the 30 fall in recorded crime in Eilean Siar the 14 increase in Edinburgh city The current presentation of brief contextual information in the commentary section seems a little disjointed and doesn t really provide sufficient explanation of possible reasons for specific trends particularly at a local authority or crime group level Crime rates per 10 000 population More context needed It is unclear whether the current crime rate is in line with the longer term trend Any comparable data in other countries Or could compare with previous years What is the longer term trend Clear up rates This section doesn t seem to be appropriately introduced this may because you have sent us an extract or because you have not drafted these aspects Again the commentary needs to include more context comparable statistics longer term trends For example what is included in other crimes that makes its clear up rate so high Why the sudden increase in sexual crimes and the increase since 2006 07 in non sexual crimes of violence Has there been a specific drive by Police Scot
7. e User Guide relationship between different We consider that section 17 contains helpful information about sources of crime statistics across thelthe range of related statistics across the criminal justice system re e gi system in Scotland which helps to provide a better context for users who are paradar interested in this topic you could also consider adding information about the coherence between Scottish Government s statistics and the Police Scotland MI or the SPA Performance data this may be information that is more appropriate in another section of the Guide Bulletin The extract of the bulletin we received contained reference to the Homicide in Scotland statistical bulletin including an explanation on how the statistics differ from those in the Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletin advice on when to use the bulletin a link to it and information on when the next bulletin is due to be published Will this level of information or a summary and links be included in the Recorded Crime in Scotland bulletin for the other crime related statistical bulletins 15 Provide information to users about User Guide he comparability of the police Section 18 presents helpful information to users about related recorded crime statistics with those statistics across the UK We felt that a bit more information could spear Acalacsetad Ukida be provided to explain the nature of differences between the 3 28 Scottish Crime Recording Standards a
8. e analysis and commentary of the two main sources of crime Further evidence called SCJS chapter has since been statistics together into a single submitted by the Scottish Government This has not yet published report and present a been reviewed and therefore the feedback below focuses coherent summary of crime based on both data sources para 3 21 Ha on the extract of the bulletin sent to the Assessment 12 Publish information for users alongside the police recorded crime statistics about how it assures itself of their quality including its assessment of any risk and potential source of error associated with the use of the underlying administrative data source para 3 23 Bulletin The information box on SCUS compared to Police Recorded Crime is helpful but we think the content could be refined to make it more understandable for users The information boxes could simply say what the user should consider when interpreting the analysis of police recorded crime So for example the section on total recorded crime says crime is going down and has fallen by X since YYYY the box could explain what crimes are comparable with the SCJS and whether for the comparable crimes the trends over time for SCJS are consistent with the police recorded crime and if not why not Threading references to the SCJS throughout the PRC publication would ensure that users are aware of when it might be better to use the SCJS than PR
9. es not include information about offences and trends over time alongside sufficient caveats about comparability and reference to relevant sections of the Technical Report Does SG plan to include recorded offences in the bulletin alongside police recorded crime We consider that including statistics about offences forms an important part of the picture Technical Report The report could be reviewed for repetition for example the Executive Summary is has very similar content as section 1 There are several questions that arose when reading the Technical Report that aren t fully addressed by its content e This Requirement includes publishing information about the methods used to compile the statistics but this Technical Report focuses primarily on the methods used in the data reconciliation exercise that SG undertook Where does SG plan to include detail about methods used to compile the statistics Where will it include information about revisions and corrections Accessibility The references to Group 5 6 should be expanded to include the name description of the offence group so users are clear about what the comparability issues relate to The document states that Scottish Government are satisfied that crime data Groups1 to 5 are comparable pre and post reform But there does not seem to be a great weight of evidence presented in this report to support this There is a lack of detailed information about how the ana
10. f information about the Scottish Government s uses of the statistics but by contrast there is limited information on uses outside SG Could feedback from your recent user event inform this Who are the Justice Board it is referenced in section 19 but it is not clear who they are Section 20 of the Guide presents the results of some consultations it is unclear if these also include the actions that SG planned to undertake in response to the user feedback You could include a reference to the Scottish Government s recent User Event and a summary of the discussions reasons for holding the event etc as well as a link to published information about the event Bulletin The extract of the bulletin we received didn t contain any information on users and uses Will this be included in the final version of the bulletin With reference to Annex 1 para A1 8 of Assessment Report we would expect to see improved information about specific uses rather than broad descriptions of use within Scottish Government Do you plan to address this in the User Guide User Guide The Guide could be used to address part of this Requirement but you may be intending to do this with another of your planned documents We have provided feedback in relation to the type of information that you could include to enhance transparency about the different organisations this feedback also relates to c Publish the results Confirm that future changes
11. ion on what processes are in place to prevent these types of inconsistencies from arising in the future For example will SCOMIS remain once i6 is introduced or are there other imminent IT changes that could impact on the statistics in the short or medium term 13 ja Keep users informed about the User Guide progress of the HMICS audit We feel that we cannot provide an informed judgement of the b Publish demonstrable evidence _ evidence in the User Guide at this point as it does not yet that the findings from the forthcoming HIMICS audit have been include much information about the recent HMICS audit We integrated into the compilation of the would need to see an updated version of the User Guide along statistics presented in Recorded With the Framework of Assurance the Technical Report and a Crime in Scotland draft of the forthcoming statistical report c Update published quality statistics in the light of the findings of The extract of the bulletin we received didn t contain information the forthcoming HMICS audit about the recent HMICS audit Will this or links to this making it clear how the outputs from information be included in the final version of the bulletin the audit inform the Scottish Government s understanding of the quality of the statistics d Consider whether statistics based on police recorded crime data can be produced to a level of quality that meets users needs More clearly document th
12. land to target detections for specific crime groups for example Could you include possible reasons why clear up rates differ between Inverclyde 70 and those LA s that have 100 clear up rates Perhaps the HMICS report may be able to provide helpful context in these cases The commentary should also include an explanation of what clear up rates are and how they are calculated The commentary makes reference to the Group 1 2 3 sections but this could be expanded on as a more casual user may not be immediately clear that you are referring to a section on non sexual crimes of violence for example Group 1 non sexual crimes of violence similar issues here the section needs more context beyond the current presentation of increases and decreases Although there is some mention of changes over the last 10 years and of different police operations that have been implemented there is no coherent explanation that links this information together and gives a clear picture about what has happened in terms of non sexual crimes of violence over the last 10 years The reference to SG s other publication Homicide in Scotland is very helpful so users are informed that they can access further analysis of this Crime type It would be helpful if the commentary could give an indication of the scale of the difference in the recorded crime data presented in each publication as a user may be unclear about whether the differences are s
13. lysis comparing the ScOMIS data to the Scottish Government legacy data was carried out For example what where the tolerances applied for each crime group How did you determine the tolerance ranges were they arbitrary What are the results of the reconciliation that passed the tolerance check There does not seem to be a clear indication of this in the report The information in the Annexes on the scale of differences that breached the tolerances is helpful and provides the user with a sense of the scale of the issues that arose from the work The description that the Scottish Government provides on the reasons for differences in recorded crimes between the two data sources is helpful particularly in relation to the re classification of a crime and no criming There is no indication of the potential scale of either of these reasons being the reason for differences is it because you cannot determine this from the reconciliation This should be made explicit to users 10 ja Publish the analysis comparing the police recorded crime statistics and the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey and any other relevant sets of statistics b Include a clear explanation about how this analysis could assess the scale of any difference between crimes recorded by the police and that experienced by the population resident in households and the resulting impact on how users should interpret crime statistics para 3 20 Bring th
14. nd the National Crime Recording Standards and the potential impact of the differences on police recorded crimes Bulletin The extract of the bulletin we received didn t contain information on comparability across the rest of the UK Will this be included in the final version of the bulletin Or will a link be added to the relevant section of the User Guide 16 Review the staffing profile of the ustice Analytical Services statistics eam and provide the Authority with an assurance that the production of police recorded crime statistics is adequately resourced para 3 31 17 improve the commentary for police User Guide recorded crime statistics by We recognise that the Guide includes some explanation of the a Clarifying the strengths and impact of changes to crime and offences classifications on the limitations of the Statistics data and how the data should be interpreted particularly the b Provide further explanatory f information aboutthe context history of changes in Section 11 In order to make a fuller judgement about whether this Requirement has been met we As part of meeting this requirement would need to see a draft of the next publication of Recorded the Scottish Government should Crime in Scotland consider the points detailed in annex 1 and annex 2 para 3 33 Bulletin The extract of the bulletin received by the Assessment team does not provide sufficient evidence to meet the Requirement It ould be
15. o address this in separate documentation ho produce the statistics are or within the Bulletin protected from any pressures that might influence the methods content lor timing of the police recorded crime statistics para 3 13 a Publish the proposed Technical User Guide Report as soon as it is finalised We were unsure whether you intended that the Guide addressed ensuring that the language and Requirement 9 For part b of this Requirement you have content cae report is accessible to iheluded some detail about the methods used to produce the b Publish Aetlicd iniormation about statistics But these seem to be described under different l the methods used to compile the SEctions so the information is not as coherent as it could be in a statistics alongside each release of Way that helps users understanding of how the statistics are Recorded Crime in Scotland compiled You may be planning to meet this Requirement in its entirety in the Technical Report But it is worth considering the para 3 18 clarity of how information on methods is presented in the Guide Bulletin The extract of the bulletin we received didn t contain any information on methods used to compile the statistics Will this be included in the final version of the bulletin or linked to from it The technical report has also highlighted that there are comparability issues with the Offences Groups the extract of the bulletin that the Assessment team has seen do
16. ous the Guide doesn t contain information about the detail of the QA process A wide range of mechanisms are employed to ensure the robustness of police recorded crime data will these mechanisms be described in the Framework of Assurance document or Technical Report For example does Scottish Government use the various audits along with their own QA to make a decision on whether the data is fit for purpose What would happen if they didn t feel they had sufficient confidence in the data How are SG reassured that no criming is carried out consistently throughout Scotland and is not being used to reduce the number of crimes in certain areas Again you may plan to cover this in other documentation The Guide will need to include reference to the forthcoming HMICS results once available This section does not include a reference to the Framework of Assurance document yet but we recognise that this is a draft There doesn t appear to be a reference to potential sources of bias and error Bulletin Will the final version of the bulletin include information on the quality of the data or will it have a link to the relevant section of the User Guide Technical Report The Technical Report provided some reassurance that the errors found in the legacy systems with regards to inconsistencies in IT systems and policing practices should not be transferred through to the SCOMIS system but little informat
17. to methods or classifications will be lannounced in advance of the publication of Recorded Crime in Scotland para 3 7 Provide more information to users about the nature and extent of changes made to police crime records para 3 9 Publish information about the roles and responsibilities of the organisations involved in the production and publication of police recorded crime statistics para 3 10 Requirement 7 e It is unclear whether the ongoing work with Police Scotland and the SPA was presented discussed at the recent User Event Section 4 1 of the Guide could be expanded to include more information about when Police Scotland publishes its own MI when they submit this data to the SPA and the relationship between the Police Scotland MI and the SG statistics In some cases Police Scotland SPA and SG will be essentially publishing information from the same source but at different times and in different formats with different levels of quality assurance carried out on it The User Guide does not include information about this to provide guidance to users on which source is most appropriate for their intended use Bulletin Does SG plan to meet this requirement in full by information presented in the User Guide Technical Report The Technical Report includes reference to some changes that will be made to Recorded Crime in Scotland in terms of revisions that will be made but it does not make reference to any changes in
18. ubstantial Will analysis of offences be included in the final version of the bulletin along with an explanation of the discontinuities discovered when Police Scotland was introduced 18 a Investigate users need for more detailed record level data to enhance analysis b publish the results of this investigation including how it plans to take the outcome forward when the legacy systems are replaced with the i6 national data collection IT system para 3 35 Review and update where necessary the formats in which it publishes police recorded crime statistics in order to meet the needs of users para 3 36 Ensure that pre release access for Does the list include those who the draft was circulated to Recorded Crime in Scotland is only granted where absolutely necessary para 3 40 Update its Statement of Administrative Sources for police statistics to include full information about the arrangements for auditing he quality of the administrative data used to compile Recorded Crime in Scotland taking into consideration he recent Authority Statement Administrative Data and Official Statistics and associated documents and the National Statistician s Interim Guidance para
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