Recorded crime in Scotland 2017-2018

Annex 4: User Engagement

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

7.32. 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.

7.33. We will continue to consult with the users of the National Statistics in order to get a better understanding of who the users are and what their requirements are for both the data and the presentation of these statistics including how, when and what we publish regarding police data. This information will aid us in the continual improvement to the structure of the bulletin as well as how the statistics are presented in future publications and ultimately help to increase the use of police data in the future.

A report on the results of our latest consultation, conducted from April to June 2015 can be found at the link below: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice/scotstatcrime/StakeCon/RCUC2015.

7.34. National 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. We always welcome feedback on the content and the uses made of our statistical bulletins and users are invited to submit their comments and any suggestions for improvement to: justiceanalysts@gov.scot.

If you would like to be kept informed about developments in crime statistics, we suggest registering with ScotStat: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/scotstat.

7.35. 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.