Government accused of being premature over release of knife crime figures

It appears that the government's release of the figures on knife crime may have been a little premature.

Yesterday's media was trumpeting the fact that fewer youths had been caught with knives in areas targeted by police in England.

However today Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority,has called the figures premature.

According to bbc.co.uk

Sir Michael has written to leading civil servants in No 10 and the Home Office to express his concern about the robustness of the figures and the manner in which they were released.

adding that the figures were provisional and

were not due for release "for some time" and that officials at the ONS - which the Authority oversees - tried to stop their release.