Transport Insights

The statistics regulator is to have a very quiet word with the people at the Department for Transport (DfT) who have a habit of making up claims of “record” funding but, as usual with regulators, the touch is so light as to be almost intangible.

I grassed the DfT up to the Office for Statistics Regulation over this claim in a press release about £3m funding to help councils with bus franchising:

local authorities are already using record government funding to introduce schemes such as discounted and free fares, as well as new services to previously unserved rural areas

which was repeated by minister Simon Lightwood.

And this one in a press release about the mythical structures fund:

a record £1 billion total package to enhance England’s roads

Bizarrely, the DfT told me that

the minister’s quote refers to the fact that this is the first time ever that multi-year bus settlement have been provided to all local transport authorities

and even more bizarrely the Office for Statistics Regulation said that while this was ambiguous the DfT had “addressed this ambiguity”.

This does seem to depend on a basic misunderstanding of ordinary English, confusing a structural change with an increase in the level of funding and to be grossly misleading.

By way of a sense check, I asked Co-pilot whether this was a legitimate use of the word “record”. It was quite clear:

No — describing something as “record funding” because it is the first time a multi year settlement has been provided to all LTAs is not a legitimate or standard use of the word “record”. “Record” refers to the highest amount ever, not the first occurrence of a structural change.

The Office for Statistics Regulation told me that the claim of record funding for local roads “appears to be an error” but one that was not repeated in the press release. So that’s OK.

It said it had raised my concern with DfT analysts “so that they are aware of this issue when future funding announcements are being produced”.

You would hope someone at the DfT feels slightly embarrassed and perhaps less likely to make stuff up when future funding announcements are being produced.