General Matters
Latest evidence on Coventry’s population estimates
Professor Champion of Newcastle University wonders if history is repeating itself in respect of Coventry’s statistics. The note below provides an update to Sir Andrew Watson’s speech at the launch event of last November. Is history repeating itself in relation to ONS overestimating the population of university cities and towns as a result of […]
Iain MacKay comments on Tony Dent’s review of the ESCoE report
This comprehensive review of the ESCoE report exposes some reasons why open government is necessary to help ensure that public resources are neither wasted nor misdirected. The coalition government that came into office in 2010 showed a determination to provide Open Data in government, manifest in its Open Data command paper. Specifically, they said: “We’re: […]
How successful is ESCoE?
A discussion paper on the ESCoE Report published on the 12th of February 2020 By Tony Dent, Chairman CMR Group and the Campaign for Better Business Statistics Summary This document provides an opportunity for discussion based upon my personal review of the recent Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) report. It also includes a […]
Covid-19 – and the good news is?
The coming boomer apocalypse Introduction In recent days there have been numerous announcements and statistics published concerning Covid-19 for the UK and overseas. For my part, I had originally crunched the figures for the UK as shown below on the 7th March. I had done that as a personal interest and I emphasise that […]
Living with Uncertainty
A reflection on some of the issues raised by Brexit day. One of the many data issues raised in recent years has been the problem of uncertainty when seeking to forecast our economic future. So, as part of UKPLC’s review of the first twenty years of this ‘new’ century we have re-examined “Macroeconomic uncertainty: what […]
The “Red Wall” has answered the question posed by the Chief Economist of the Bank of England
Within days of the momentous Brexit Referendum, the Chief Economist of the Bank of England in a speech in Port Talbot Wales made some telling points about the then current economic assumptions and the belief that successful business statistics, translate to successful real world outcomes. Andrew Haldane, in remarks attributed to him and not the […]