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Tax statistics
Swinney expresses ‘significant concern’ at HMRC publication.
Finance Secretary John Swinney has written to Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander to question the manner in which tax statistics were published by HMRC.
The HMRC publication A disaggregation of HMRC tax receipts between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was published on Wednesday.
The Scottish Government’s Chief Statistician has also formally written to the UK Statistics Authority to make them aware of a clear violation on the misuse of government statistics.
In a letter to Mr Alexander, Mr Swinney said:
“It is vitally important that the people of Scotland are able to make an informed decision in the referendum on Scottish independence next year.
“The public must be able to trust the statistics that are cited by both sides in the debate. I am deeply concerned at the manner in which these numbers have been developed and published.
“Firstly, it was very disappointing to be made aware that these numbers were described as ‘official’ and designated as a National Statistics release on the UK Statistics Publication Hub without any reference to their experimental nature.
“My officials made the UK Statistics Authority aware of this, however these descriptions and the use of the National Statistics Kitemark remained throughout Thursday.
“Secondly, despite my officials receiving reassurance that these experimental statistics would not be used for political purposes and would be published in a low key manner appropriate to the experimental status of the statistics, I received a number of approaches from media outlets prior to publication asking for a comment from the Scottish Government.
“This suggests to me that publication was in fact being widely trailed. In addition, your comments claiming that it would appear that civil servants need to explain any differences between National Statistics (which have been subject to extensive consultation over many years and have been rigorously assessed to ensure that they have been produced in accordance with Code of Practice for Statistics) and new experimental statistics produced by HMRC (which have not) are unacceptable.
“The apparent political handling of this publication, the lack of open consultation on the methods deployed and the rushed nature of the publication, leaves me no option but to also question the credibility of these regional tax estimates.”
