NATIONAL STATISTICIAN’S CRIME STATISTICS ADVISORY COMMITTEE AGENDA UK Statistics Authority, Meeting room 3, Drummond Gate, London, SW1V 2QQ Thursday 24 September 2015, 14:00 – 16:00 Attendees: Adrian Smith (Chair) UK Statistics Authority Board David Blunt Home Office Steve Bond Home Office Allan Brimicombe University of East London Roma Chappell Office for National Statistics Steve Ellerd-Elliott Ministry of Justice Jeff Farrar National Policing Lead for Crime Statistics Fiona Glen Independent expert Glyn Jones Welsh Government Chris Lewis University of Portsmouth Patricia Mayhew Independent Criminological Consultant Mark Cooper Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (for Tom Winsor) Mike Warren Home Office (for Diana Luchford) John Flatley (Secretariat) Office for National Statistics Apologies: Junaid Gharda Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire Mike Levi Cardiff University Diana Luchford Home Office Stephen Shute University of Sussex Tom Winsor Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary Agenda Timings Order of Business Item No. 1. 14:00 – 14:10 Introduction and announcements Adrian Smith (Chair) 2. 14:10 – 14:15 NSCSAC(15)1 Minutes and matters arising from the meeting held on 20 May 2015 Adrian Smith (Chair) 3. 14:15 – 14:30 For NSCSAC(15)2 Draft terms of reference Discussion Adrian Smith (Chair) 4. 14:30 – 15:30 NSCSAC(15)3 Report on the UKSA event Author NSCSAC(15)4 Review of work programme and priorities for the Committee John Flatley (Secretariat) 5. 15:30 – 15:40 Crime Data Integrity – Oral update Mark Cooper, HMIC 6. 15:40 – 15:50 NSCSAC(15)5 National Crime Registrar’s Report Steve Bond, Home Office 7. 15:50 – 16:00 Any other All members business NSCSAC(15)6 MINUTES OF THE NATIONAL STATISTICIAN’S CRIME STATISTICS ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING ON 24 SEPTEMBER 2015 Meeting room 3, 1 Drummond Gate, Pimlico, London, SW1V 2QQ CHAIR Adrian Smith UK Statistics Authority Board MEMBERS PRESENT David Blunt Home Office Steve Bond Home Office Allan Brimicombe University of East London Roma Chappell Office for National Statistics Steve Ellerd-Elliott Ministry of Justice Jeff Farrar National Policing Lead for Crime Statistics Fiona Glen Independent expert Glyn Jones Welsh Government Chris Lewis University of Portsmouth Patricia Mayhew Independent Criminological Consultant ADDITIONAL ATTENDEES Mark Cooper Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (for Tom Winsor) Mike Warren Home Office (for Diana Luchford) SECRETARIAT John Flatley Office for National Statistics APOLOGIES Junaid Gharda Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner for Staffordshire Mike Levi Cardiff University Diana Luchford Home Office Stephen Shute University of Sussex Tom Winsor Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary 1. Chair's Introduction and announcements 1.1. The Chair welcomed members to the first meeting of the re-constituted committee and explained that he wanted to use this first meeting to focus discussion on ways of working and to identify priorities for future work. The Chair suggested that he was minded to make more use of sub-groups to take a “deep dive” into specific issues to bring back to the committee. Such sub-groups could be extended to experts beyond the current membership if it was felt useful to do so. 1.2. The Chair informed members, that in the light of such discussion, he wanted to review membership and consider whether the committee had the right blend of expertise it needed. The Chair said that he would write to members in the coming weeks about membership and periods of appointment. 2. Minutes and matters arising from meeting held on 20 May 2015- NSCSAC(15)1 2.1. The minutes of the last meeting of the predecessor committee were agreed as an accurate record. 2.2. The Secretariat informed members that the outgoing Chair, Stephen Shute, expected to circulate a draft final report to members for comment within the next few weeks. Once agreed, it would be sent to the Home Secretary and the National Statistician. 2.3. The Chair noted that the actions from the last meeting, as summarized in the Action Log at the end of the minutes, had been completed or were to be covered by agenda items at this meeting. 2.4. The Chair then invited Chris Lewis to report back on the first meeting of a Task and Finish Group (TFG) that had been created to take forward work on a Crime Index. 2.5. It was reported that the first meeting had been held in the morning before the full committee meeting and reviewed a paper presented by ONS on work that they had undertaken to date. Chris Lewis said that he thought it likely that the group would take 9-12 months to complete its work. 2.6. There was a discussion about the extent to which the full NSCSAC committee should be engaged in the work of the TFG and it was agreed there should be an ongoing dialogue with brief updates given at each main committee meeting. The Chair thought there would be useful lessons to share from the review of and debate on Prices Indices in the development of this work. Action 1: Secretariat to add update from the Crime Index TFG to the agenda for future meetings. 3. Draft terms of reference - NSCSAC(15)2 3.1. The Chair introduced the draft terms of reference and invited comments from members. There was a question about the extent to which the new terms of reference differed from the previous set. It was explained that the most significant change concerned the change in governance and that the committee’s advice was to go to the National Statistician, who would then advise the Home Secretary and HMIC in his role as Government's principal adviser on official statistics. 3.2. The Chair also drew attention to the additional reference to the Regulatory work of the UK Statistics Authority and that he thought it helpful for the committee to hear, from time to time, from the Director General for Regulation when there were issues that raised matters for this committee. 3.3. It was noted that paragraph 3 referred to the scope of the committee’s consideration being extended to include the Home Office’s Commercial Victimisation Survey (CVS). Some members questioned the need for this extension, pointing out that the CVS already had a separate set of governance arrangements including a Steering Group and an External Reference Group. There was agreement that NSCSAC should not seek to duplicate activity carried out elsewhere but that crime against business was an important part of the crime statistics landscape and should not be beyond the scope of the committee’s advice if it was needed in the future. 3.4. This led to further discussion about whether or not the views of NSCSAC needed to be sought before any changes or improvements were made to the official statistics on crime. It was agreed that it was never the intention for the committee to consider every small change and that only matters of significance with regard to the primary mission for the committee (as set out in para 1 of the terms of reference) needed to come before the committee for advice. 3.5. It was agreed that the terms of reference needed some tweaking to reflect the above discussion. Action 2: Secretariat to amend draft terms of reference and to circulate with the minutes for comment. 4. Report on the UK Statistics Authority event on crime statistics – NSCSAC(15)3 4.1. John Flatley (ONS) introduced a paper that had been jointly written with Ed Humpherson, UK Statistics Authority Director General of Regulation which reflected on the Authority event on crime statistics under the banner of the new strategy of Better Statistics, Better Decisions. The paper summarized the key themes that came out of the event and invited the committee to reflect on them and consider which were key priorities for advice by the committee going forward. 4.2. The Chair invited the committee to consider the issues identified in Ed Humpherson’s address to the event which sought to set out some of the key questions about the value of crime statistics, such as: • Who are crime statistics for? • What judgements do they inform? • Do they cover the right types of crime? • Do they capture experiences of all victims? • Is enough done to link them to other types of criminal justice data, and to other non justice data sets, including commercial datasets? • What sort of accountability do they support? 4.3. The Chair invited members to consider whether these were the right questions. In discussion, the additional points were identified: • Is the burden imposed in collecting or producing the statistics commensurate with the value in publishing them? • How does the quality of the statistics benchmark against international standards? • How well are the statistics communicated and presented to the diverse range of users who might make use of them? • What are the major gaps in our understanding of crime and what new forms of databases might be used to better inform the totality of crime/demand on the police? 4.4. The committee then reviewed the themes and proposed actions set out in Annex A of the paper. The proposed actions were agreed and there was discussion on a range of work that was already under various themes. The Chair suggested that an issues log should be created to provide an up to date information record of the latest developments on topics being considered by the committee. Action 3: Secretariat to establish an issues log to be updated for each committee meeting. 5. Crime Data Integrity - Oral update from HMIC 5.1. At this point in the meeting, the Chair invited Mark Cooper to give an update ion HMIC’s latest thinking about their future inspection of police recorded crime data.