What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

The Tory Education Secretary has been blasted by the official stats watchdog for a string of figures used by his department.

Damian Hinds received a damning letter from the head of the UK Statistics Authority warning about the dangers of undermining public confidence.

Sir David Norgrove said he had "serious concerns about the Department for Education's presentation and use of statistics".

And he cautioned ministers to present figures "in a way that does not mislead" in future.

Labour have described the letter as a "humiliating rebuke" for Tory ministers who have been reprimanded four times for their use of stats over the last year.

Sir David highlighted four occasions that had caused the authority concern but stressed that there was no sign that ministers had learned from their mistakes.

(Image: Getty)

Ministers downplayed concerns from headteachers who marched on Parliament to protest school funding by insisting that the UK was “the third highest spender on education in the world”.

But a BBC report found the figures also included money spent by university students on tuition fees and parents on private school fees prompting the stats authority to launch an investigation.

Today, just minutes before the letter from Sir David was published, Education Secretary Damian Hinds doubled down on claims about the UK's spending compared to other countries.

Sir David referred to a number of occasions when they were forced to criticise the department.

Last week, the Minister of State for School Standards Nick Gobb wrote that, in an international survey of reading abilities of nine-year-olds, England “leapfrogged up the rankings last year, after decades of falling standards, going from 19th out of 50 countries to 8th.”

Sir David said in this letter: "This is not correct. Figures published last year show the increase was from 10th place in 2011 to 8th place in 2016."

(Image: PA)

He also highlighted a recent tweet and blog from the department in which he said "figurees were presented in such a way as to misrepresent changes in school funding."

He explained that spending was "exaggerated by using a truncated axis, and by not adjusting for per pupil spend".

Sir David also referenced the claim which the BBC exposed - which the department has since updated - saying that the original way it was presented used "a wide range of education expenditure unrelated to publicly funded schools" to "give a more favourable picture".

The stats chief also highlighted concerns raised by Labour's Shadow Education Secretary Angela Rayner over the DfE's claim that there had been a "substantial increase" in the number of children attending high performing schools as judged by regulator Ofsted.

In his speech to Tory party conference, Mr Hinds said that 1.9 million more kids are "studying in good or outstanding schools" under the Conservatives, prompting the Labour frontbencher to demand an investigation.

In his letter, Sir David said that while the claim was "accurate as far as it goes," it had failed to "give a full picture" and should have been put in context with an overall rise in pupil numbers as well as changes to the way inspections are carried out.

He added: “The UK Statistics Authority has had cause to publicly write to the department with concerns on four occasions in the past year. I regret that the department does not yet appear to have resolved issues with its use of statistics.

"I seek your reassurance that the department remains committed to the principles and practices defined in the statutory code of practice for statistics."

Sir David also revealed he had asked the Authority’s Director-General for Regulation, Ed Humpherson to speak with the most senior civil servant Jonathan Slater, Permanent Secretary at the Department for Education, and to Neil McIvor, Head of Profession for Statistics at the Department for Education, "about what the Department might do to improve its practice" in a highly unusual move.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "The Conservatives are misleading the public in a desperate attempt to hide the fact that they have cut school budgets."

Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Education, said: “This is a humiliating rebuke for Tory ministers.

"The Education Secretary has not even been in office for a year, yet this is the fourth time he has been caught by the government’s own watchdog making a claim that is wildly misleading or blatantly false.

“They need to come clean and stop deceiving the public in a desperate attempt to cover up their shocking record.

“They have used misleading figures on school funding to hide the fact that they have cut billions of pounds from school budgets, leaving head-teachers forced to beg for donations from parents to pay for books and stationary.

“And their claims on school standards are now in tatters. Instead of relying on discredited statistics they should use the Budget to invest in schools and genuinely improve standards.”

(Image: REUTERS)

“The next Labour government will fairly fund all schools, as part of a National Education Service for the many, not the few.”

Damian Hinds published his letter responding to Sir David in which he said his department was "keen to work closely with the UKSA and we want all departmental statistics to be both factually accurate and used in the right context."

But Mr Hinds challenged a number of the authority's criticisms insisting that the UK is "among the higher spenders on education at primary and secondary level whether you look at spend as a share of GDP, spend as a share of government spending or spend per pupil".

He repeated the ranking of the UK as third highest for total education spending (which includes private school fees) but also flagged what he called a "more direct statistic" which is that "among G7 nations the UK government spent the highest percentage of its GDP on institutions delivering primary and secondary education".

Mr Hinds repeated the figures on school spending saying that "core funding is rising to £43.5bn by 2019-20" but he accepted that "pupil numbers are rising, we are asking schools to do more and schools are facing cost pressures" and said he recognised the importance of that context.

And he ignored the spending cuts that were enacted between 2015 to the present.

He repeated the claim about reading score but accepted that "we could have been clearer that the improvement from 19th to 8th was between 2006 and 2016".

Regarding the stat about the number of children in Good or Outstanding schools he explained that his department had extrapolated a percentage into the number of children.

He said: "I believe it is important to establish that the proportion of children in schools whose last Ofsted judgement was Good or Outstanding has risen from 66% in 2010 to 86% in March 2018; to make this more intelligible we tend to use the number of children rather than a percentage figure - hence we express it as 1.9m more children in Good or Outstanding schools."

Mr Hinds insisted his department "want to ensure always present those factually accurate statements" and committed to working with the stats authority.