A consultation on changing the format for this series of publications.
The Home Office publishes statistics annually on Police powers and procedures recorded by the police in England and Wales. This annual output, which is designated National Statistics, contains chapters on arrests and detentions, stop and search, fixed penalty notices and breath tests.
The next annual issue, containing statistics for the 12 months to 31 March 2011 (or the calendar year 2010 for certain measures) is pre-announced for publication on 19 April 2012. For this issue, the Home Office plans to change the format of publication, from a pdf based bulletin to a web based output, with a set of HTML pages and Excel spreadsheets.
This move, particularly with respect to the spreadsheets, will give greater flexibility to users. The spreadsheets will contain full datasets and replace the more rigid format of the current tables, maps and charts (although some key ones will still appear). We shall aim to make the commentary more concise but just as informative, and in the HTML format it will be more useable across the internet. Explanatory notes on sources and definitions will be contained in a separate user guide, in the original pdf format. The new format publication release would retain the current scope of information and we would aim to extend information available where possible.
The format will be broadly similar to that adopted for the Immigration Statistics quarterly outputs which has proved to be a successful format following the launch of the new style publication in August 2011, and has been welcomed by users. The latest issue covering July - September 2011 can be seen at: Immigration Statistics July - September 2011
If you would like to comment on the Home Office plans, or have suggestions to offer, please could you send them to policestats@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk by Friday 16 March.
Home Office Statistics 16 January 2012