Recorded Crime in Scotland, 2014-15

Annex 6: Users of the Statistics

6.45. These statistics are used by a large number of stakeholders within central government, the police and other public bodies for a variety of purposes.

6.46. Crime statistics are also used by a variety of external stakeholders. A flavour of such uses are:

• Utility companies who wish to assess the safety of an area before sending employees out into the public;
• Insurance companies assessing the risk of crime in different areas;
• Local authority planning;
• National and local journalism;
• Academic research; and
• Students and school pupils writing dissertations and carrying out projects.

6.47. As part of our stakeholder consultation in 2015, users discussed utilising the publication on Police Recorded Crime (amongst other publications based on returns from Police Scotland) in multiple ways, including:

• Selecting headline figures for briefing and communication lines;
• Monitoring trends over time;
• Developing policy;
• Understanding local crime rates and clear up rates;
• Understanding police performance;
• Making comparisons in conjunction with other justice statistics and data from other sources;
• Providing legitimacy and reassurance around police management data.

In many cases, the themes reported above replicated and built on those identified in previous consultations.

6.48. Official statistics are a tool used in decision making both inside and outside government, and for this tool to be effective it must be designed to meet the needs of users. Comments on the uses you have made of these statistics and any suggestions for their improvement are always welcomed and should be sent to justiceanalysts@gov.scot.

6.49. Further information on users and uses of the statistics is available in the User Guide to Recorded Crime Statistics in Scotland, which can be found at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/PubRecordedCrime/UserGuide.