Housing and communities in England

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A briefing paper from Reduced Statistics investigates the UK Department for Communities and Local Government. It had  a 7.8% cut in the 2010 Budget, with further large yearly reductions to 2015. Under the doctrine of ‘localism’, much of its core policy and analysis work in housing, planning and regeneration has been devolved to local authorities. A number of its non-Whitehall agencies which produced statistics have also been abolished or merged. Read the full five page Reduced Statistics briefing on housing communities in England.

Comments are welcome to expand and improve the content of the briefing.

Scottish Government Surveys amalgamated from 2012

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The annual budget for four major Scottish population surveys has been cut by £2.8m, reducing the sample size for some questions and omitting a nurse visit and its blood samples. On the plus side, core questions will have a larger sample size in the combined survey. The four affected surveys are:

    • The Scottish Crime and Justice Survey
    • The Scottish Health Survey
    • The Scottish Household Survey
    • The Scottish House Condition Survey

The Scottish Government report summarising these changes was published in November 2011. Comments are requested by michael.davidson@scotland.gsi.gov.uk.

Another Statistics Canada chief quits over cuts and control

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Philip Cross, StatsCan’s chief economic analyst, has resigned, citing the reduction of reliable basic information from the Census, and the politicisation of the national statistics agency.

The resignation comes 18 months after the head of StatsCan Munir Sheikh left, forced by the Federal Government to take responsibility for its decision to replace the Census detailed questionnaire by a voluntary household survey. The Federal Government felt that a compulsory census was invasive of privacy, a comment also made by journalists supporting a ‘Mind your own business’ campaign during the 2011 UK Census.

The unknown bias in the Canadian voluntary household survey is blamed for serious uncertainty in Canada’s price index. The consequences of the decision to make the NHS voluntary have only begun to manifest themselves, say economists in Canada. Statistics Canada has had a long deserved worldwide reputation for its independence and authoritative contributions to official statistical methods.  These cuts to the Canadian Census and other surveys caused an outcry and fears of similar downgrading of the statistical base in other countries, as reported in previous entries to this Reduced Statistics blog.

Further cost cuts, due to be announced in this spring’s federal budget, mean the Canadian agency is preparing for the possibility of layoffs.

Mis-measurement of health and wealth: Radstats Conference & AGM, 24-25 Feb 2012, London

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British Library logoFebruary is upon us! If you’ve not had the chance, please note that you can still book a space for the Radical Statistics conference to be held on Friday, February 24th 2012 at the British Library Conference Centre, followed by a half-day interactive workshop and AGM on Saturday 25th.

Don’t miss our challenging and engaging programme with talks on:

·       Measuring health – history and methods

·       Deception in medical research – scientific and regulatory failure

·       Deception in financial statistics – how this contributes to financial mayhem

Speakers:  Roy Carr-Hill, Val Saunders, Dr Aubrey Blumsohn, Prof. David Healy, Prof. Prem Sikka, Ann Pettifor, Prof. Allyson Pollock & Howard Reed.

Both days will provide a great opportunity to learn and discuss how misleading statistics are used to bolster political preferences and how difficult issues can be demystified with clear statistics.

All interested in research and statistics are welcome – the conference is neither technical nor limited to professional researchers.

Please find the programme and related information at www.radstats.org.uk/conf2012, where you can make your booking now!

Consultations, consultations

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If January is your slow month, now’s the time to act on these current data user consultations:

(1) Beyond 2011 – Public Consultation

Businesswoman consulting a partner

Opening date: 17 October 2011
Closing date: 20 January 2012
Department: Office for National Statistics
Category: General

The User Needs Consultation aims to ensure that we have a clear understanding of users’ needs and priorities.

The views expressed will be critical in determining how we develop our assessment criteria, how we evaluate alternative approaches and what option we recommend for further development beyond 2014.

The User Needs Consultation document can be downloaded from our website (626 Kb Word document) .

This document provides brief discussion and guidance on the questions included in the questionnaire and we would appreciate it if you could look at it before responding.

Thanks in advance for your help on this.

Please complete the questionnaire online  – or use the questionnaire included in the consultation document and return electronically to beyond2011@ons.gov.uk by 20 January 2012.

If you would like to share your views on the issues behind the Beyond 2011 Public Consultation you can join the conversation on the Royal Statistical Society Statistics User Forum.

(2) Lifestyles Surveys Consultation Review

As you will be aware, the NHS Information Centre (IC) publishes the following Lifestyles survey publications:

The findings are used to provide an insight into the health and behaviour of people in England. The longevity of the surveys also enables changing trends to be studied over time. They can be used to help decision makers improve policies and services and ultimately improve the health of population in this country.

The NHS IC has launched a public consultation on the Lifestyles surveys with the following aims:

  • to engage with the users of the surveys to develop a more complete understanding of the use made of this data
  • to ensure the surveys are relevant and meaningful to the needs of users
  • to seek the views of users on the content and format of the publications

This consultation will run for 12 weeks from Friday 30 December 2011 to Friday 23 March 2012. Please ensure you submit any comments prior to the closing date so they can be considered.

Further details, along with the full consultation document are available at www.ic.nhs.uk/work-with-us/consultations/lifestyles-surveys-consultation-review

1967 Census of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Digitized Tables

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image of Shu'fat Refugee Camp

Shu’fat Refugee Camp by Decode Jerusalem on Flickr

In the summer of 1967, just after the Six-Day War brought the West Bank and Gaza Strip under Israel’s control, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics conducted a census of the occupied territories. The resulting seven volumes of reports provide the earliest detailed description of this population, including crucial data about respondents’ 1948 refugee status.

In recent decades, these volumes of tables — over 300 tables in all — have received little or no attention from historians of the occupation, not least because it is not easy to use the reports in print form and in any case the volumes are not widely available even in good research libraries.

The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College is making the contents of these volumes available in machine-readable form for the first time, free of charge to anyone with access to the internet. The tables can be downloaded in Excel format for intensive research.

Many tables provide information cross-tabulated with several social characteristics at once (for example, education or occupation cross-tabulated with age, gender and refugee status) and presented for small geographic locales as well sub-totaled for regions.

Also, in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority’s censuses of 1997 and 2007 these tables help provide an understanding of trends over 40 years. We hope that the data can be exploited by researchers interested in a fuller understanding of the social history of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

For an overview of our project and to access the hundreds of tables contained in the 1967 Census database, go to http://www.levyinstitute.org/palestinian-census/
Feel free to circulate notice of this website to anyone who you think would be interested.
Joel Perlmann
Project Director
Levy Economics Institute of Bard College

Your memories of Radical Statistics

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Bounded texts and study table in library

by JoSzczepanska on flickr

Radical Statistics Group’s 36 years of activity is to be archived for all to learn from. Documents are being collated with a view to offering them to Wellcome Trust library in London, aiming to have as much as possible online and all catalogued.

Much of our activity is documented in the newsletter, which is available on the Radical Statistics website. But the experience and impact of the group has been much wider than is reflected there, with influence through public meetings, press releases and publicity, support to campaigns and inspiration to individuals and groups in the UK and in other parts of the world.

Send your documents, or memories that you can document for the archive, to admin@radstats.org.uk

 

Radstats 2012 Conference Announcement

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Bookings are open for the Radical Statistics conference on February 24th 2012. This year we are hosted by the British Library and have a challenging programme on:

  • Measuring health – history and methods
  • Deception in medical research – scientific and regulatory failure
  • Deception in financial statistics – how this contributes to financial mayhem

This conference gives an opportunity to learn how misleading statistics are used to bolster political preferences and how difficult issues can be demystified with clear statistics.

All interested in research and statistics are welcome – the conference is neither technical nor limited to professional researchers. There are eight speakers and smaller group sessions, with lunch included.

The Radical Statistics AGM and activity debate will be on Saturday morning February 25th.

 Please pass on by email, print and distribute the
A4 flyer advertising the programme, and visit the conference site at www.radstats.org.uk/conf2012, where you can make your booking now!

—
Alistair Cairns, admin@radstats.org.uk
Administrator
Radical Statistics

Results of the Radstats 2011 Critical Essay Competition

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The judges have chosen the following winners to the Critical Essay Competition which closed in July, 2011 with decisions in Oct 2011.

Two prizes were awarded in the student category. No prizes were awarded in the open category.

The essays will appear in an upcoming issue of Radical Statistics.


  • 1st Prize: Nick Wattie – Relative age effects in education and sport: An argument for human, not statistical solutions.
  • 2nd Prize: Chi-lin Tsai – Would both the trade unions and the Labour Party benefit from an amicable divorce?
The award for first prize is  £60 and the second prize of £40, both in vouchers.Each prize winner has been given a one-year subscription to Radical Statistics and free entry to the 2012 conference.

Owing to the high standard of the entries this year, a few of the shortlisted entries were given a one-year subscription to Radical Statistics.

Congratulations to the prize winners entries on behalf of the Radical Statistics Troika!

Also, many thanks on behalf of to the contest organisers Alan Marshall and Lee Williamson to our judges Claire Boag, Jay Ginn and Paul Norman for making the 2011 Radstats Critical Essay Competition a success.

Moral panic about overpopulation: the distracting campaign of Population Matters

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Moral panic about overpopulation: the distracting campaign of Population Matters

—For Immediate Release —

28th October 2011

On the 31st October the world population will pass 7 billion. It is essential that evidence rather than myth informs the challenges and opportunities that such population growth presents.

Population Matters describe themselves as “the leading environmental charity and think-tank in the UK concerned with the impact of population growth on the environment”. The group have promoted their apocalyptic views of population in well funded media campaigns to mark the passing of 7 billion global population.

Radical Statistics’ Population group of UK demographers/population scientists and statisticians, have examined the claims and policy of Population Matters finding them guilty of frequent overstatement, rhetoric and one-sided assertion rather than evidence that population growth is the main cause of environmental threats. Like others concerned about overpopulation before them, Population Matters promote policies that erroneously focus on the groups who consume the least. The Radical Statistics group calls on high profile patrons of Population Matters to reconsider their support, including the naturalists and broadcasters David Attenborough and Chris Packham, environmental campaigner Jonathan Porritt, and senior academic and cultural figures.

Seven key myths that are promoted by Population Matters are summarised below:

Myth 1Population growth is increasing at an ever faster rate.Evidence

Current UN projections indicate slowing growth and a maximum world population that remains between 10.0 and 10.5 billion from 2083. In the UK levels of fertility are below the level required to replace the current population.

 

Myth 2Population causes resources to run out.Evidence

This myth has a long history; it has been expressed by Malthus, Plato, Aristotle and Tertullian, and many times since. Resources are not fixed or knowable; what is considered a resource changes over time. This myth overlooks the potential for human ingenuity to overcome problems, discover and use resources more efficiently. Historical evidence of steadily increasing population fed by successive productive revolutions demonstrates that a fixed human carrying capacity for planet earth is nonsense.

 

Myth 3More population means more environmental damage. 

Evidence

The link between population growth and environmental damage is not supported by evidence. For example, there is a weak relationship between a country’s population growth and carbon emissions. The Royal Commission on Environmental Protection’s final report in 2011 found consumption and the impact associated with each unit of consumption more important than population in terms of environmental impact. Historical experience clearly shows that current population growth has not the prime driver of environmental degradation.

 

Myth 4The economic and social inequality experienced by women and their access to contraception are being ignored. Evidence

Improvement of women’s educational and economic conditions, and non-coercive facilitation of family planning throughout the world, are embodied in the Millennium Development Goals, although more efforts to empower women are needed.

 

Myth 5Population growth causes poverty by preventing development in poorer countries.Evidence

There is no empirical evidence for this claim. Poverty is recognised to be a result of inequality stemming from social factors rather than population size. For example, globally, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation, farmers produce more than the necessary nutrition requirement to feed the world population. This supports views that not limited world resources but the unequal distribution of resources mainly explains the current poverty and hunger problems in the world.

 

Myth 6Reducing teenage pregnancies will reduce the population of the UK (a policy advocated by Population Matters). 

Evidence

Teenage births represent only 7% of all births and births to young women below the age of 18 and around 2% of all births in 2008. Reducing teenage pregnancy would very likely have little impact on population size especially as many teenagers would simply delay having children to a later date.

 

Myth 7Reduction of migration is needed to reduce the impact of population on the environment (a policy advocated by Population Matters).Evidence

The Royal Commission on the Protection of Environment (2011) found no case for further controls to regulate non-EU migration on environmental grounds. Any policies on migration will have no direct impact on population size. Population Matters are keen to restrict immigration to the UK but do not encourage migration away from the UK to less populated regions. Restricting non-EU migration to the UK might well lead to greater world population in the future as research suggests migrants to the UK from developing countries tend to have lower birth rates than the country they came from.

 

For more detail on the critique of Population Matters see the paper ‘Moral panic about overpopulation: a distracting campaign?’ by the Radical Statistics Population Studies group available at:

https://www.radstats.org.uk/popgroup/

Dr Alan Marshall is the contact for Radical Statistics Population Studies Group on this matter and is available for comment on Friday 28th October 2011:

a.d.marshall@leeds.ac.uk

07858447308

 —END—