Archives for March 2009

All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.
-- Orthodoxy, GK Chesterton, 1908

GK Chesterton would have had much to say, I suspect, about the proposals to change the rules of succession to the throne, including, as the BBC reports it this morning, "giving royal women equal rights".

Tradition is, almost by definition, at odds with contemporary ideas and values. Customs, rituals and structures which were born of another age are preserved and maintained for the present. Societies cherish these bubbles from the past because of, rather than in spite of, their incongruity.

Beefeaters and bearskins are more than quaint and bizarre reminders of our past. They are a vital part of our today.

In his book Legal Traditions of the World, the Canadian law professor Patrick Glenn argues that political and social theory has "turned to tradition as a possible means of maintaining social coherence and identity in liberal, industrialized societies"

He suggests that if formal sources of law "have become too thin and weak for the tasks they should accomplish, supportive normativity may be found in tradition".

In other words, the forces of globalisation and cultural mixing have magnified the importance people place upon the customs, institutions and ceremonies of the past. Tradition provides a point of constancy, a solid pole planted in the swirling sands of rapid social change. People may have greater respect for ancient tradition than for modern legislation.

When the Prime Minister Gordon Brown says that "people living in the 21st Century expect discrimination to be removed", he is right. Today's BBC poll is good evidence of how the public believes the royal family should modernise to reflect the values of the age.

But it also offers a big thumbs up for an institution the very existence of which is at odds with ideas of democracy and meritocracy. "Giving royal women equal rights" is almost oxymoronic.

The challenge is in how one protects tradition without allowing it to become irrelevant and incompatible.

Chesterton also said:

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

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What stops teen pregnancies: condoms or family meals?

Is the answer to teenage pregnancies more advice on how to get an abortion? Or pre-watershed TV ads on the wisdom of wearing a condom?

Britain has the highest level of teen conceptions in Europe, but I suspect that the problem is more down to lifestyle than to lack of information.

If the equation were as simple as [more sex education = fewer unwanted pregnancies], why have Britain's rates remained stubbornly high during a decade when advice has never been easier to access?

As far as the availability of abortions is concerned, the latest figures show record numbers opting for a termination. In 2007, more than 20,000 girls under the age of 18 received a legal abortion in England and Wales - a rate of 20/1000, the highest ever recorded.

These figures do not suggest that it is ignorance of the options that sees so many young women give birth.

Allowing pregnancy advisory services to advertise on television is clearly controversial, but is it any more problematic than allowing those same organisations to put up posters on school notice boards? Or on bus shelters? These already happen.

So far as information on contraception is concerned, I doubt that there is a secondary-school-aged child who hasn't had the low-down on condoms. The question is whether they take any notice.

For me, the figures which offer the most likely explanation for the UK's high teen pregnancy rates do not relate to sex education at all. They reflect upon the amount of time young people spend unsupervised with other young people - kids hanging around without adults.

Research published by the Institute for Public Policy Research think tank (IPPR) [55Kb PDF; registration required] in 2007 looked at the lifestyle of teenagers in a number of European countries.

Proportion of 15-year-olds spending time with friends four or more evenings a week, 2001/02; source: IPPR

In France, just one in six of 15-year-old boys questioned said that they spent most evenings out with their mates. In Italy and Germany, it was roughly one in four.

But in England, the figure was 45% who spent most nights with their teenage friends. In Scotland, the figure was nearly 60%.

Young people whose parents eat the main meal with them around a table several times a week, 2000; source: IPPR

If young people are spending a lot of time with other young people, often taking alcohol or drugs and without parental or other adult supervision, it is far more likely that they will end up having sex.

Proportion of 15-year-olds who have had sexual intercourse, 2001/02; source: IPPR

And our youngsters do: 38% of our 15-year-olds say they have had sexual intercourse compared to 16% in Spain, 22% in France, 23% in the Netherlands, 24% in Italy and 28% in Germany. I suspect that almost four in ten 15-year-olds having sex is less about ignorance and more about opportunity.

Update 0827 2009-03-27: The second image was initially published with the same caption as the first. Now corrected; thank you, aliskat.

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I have just been sent a new e-mail and official guidance which were sent to the Home Office ahead of their decision to publish inaccurate knife crime statistics last December. The documents reveal that officials were told that publication would "undermine the integrity of official statistics".

The e-mail is dated 26 November, 2008 - a fortnight before the so-called "fact sheet" was released. It clearly warns that the data "is still provisional".

From: Statistical Analyst IC

Sent: 26 November 2008 18:59

To: Home Office Official(x2)

Cc: Department of Health Official

Subject: Month 6 (April to September) Data

Hi

Ahead of schedule, here is the Month 6 (April to September) Data. As before, I have included September data but be aware that as the most recent month, this may not be 100% complete.

As always, please take extra care with this data and who it is shared with as it is still provisional and has not yet been released/published.

Thanks

Statistical Analyst IC

The NHS Information Centre for health and social care
1 Trevelyan Square, Boar Lane, Leeds, LS1 6AE.

Just in case the alert was not clear enough, a footnote attached to the data (which you can read the full details of here) spelt it out.

Pre-release data (RESTRICTED STATISTICS) - 2007-08 PROVISIONAL DATA You are reminded that these are official statistics to which you have privileged access in advance of release. Such access is carefully controlled and is provided for management, quality assurance and briefing purposes only. Release into the public domain or any public comment on these statistics prior to official publication would undermine the integrity of official statistics. Please note these data will be published in their final form in December 2008. Any accidental or wrongful release should be reported immediately and may lead to an inquiry.

The statisticians make it crystal clear that "release into the public domain or any public comment on these statistics prior to official publication would undermine the integrity of official statistics".

Indeed, they go further. "Any accidental or wrongful release should be reported immediately and may lead to an inquiry."

And yet, as we now know, the Home Office and No 10 went ahead with publication on the justification that it showed "the progress that had been made with tackling knife crime".

When the verified figures were finally released it was revealed that the statistics showed no such thing.

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Two years ago, on an upbeat floor of the New York Stock Exchange, American writer and journalist Tom Wolfe was asked what he made of it all. He paused and said: "We may be witnessing the end of capitalism as we know it."

He has subsequently said that he didn't expect anyone to take him seriously, but there are some who now regard him as a prophet of gloom.

Those who predict that, economically speaking, "the end of the world is nigh" are no longer dismissed as misguided oddballs. Indeed, there seems to be some consensus that we have now witnessed "the end of capitalism as we know it".

Conservative leader David Cameron said in a speech today: "when they look at capitalism today too many people see markets without morality, and that's what's got to change". He added that "we need capitalism with a conscience".

Former Labour Minister Alan Milburn, also in a speech today, echoed the sentiment. "Unfettered markets didn't deliver. Regulation didn't work. And greed produced gluttony which in turn has given the world a deep and painful bout of indigestion."

Wolfe's "Master of the Universe", the multi-millionaire Wall Street trader Sherman McCoy in Bonfire of the Vanities, now epitomises the source of global economic strife.

It is striking that Mr Milburn, the champion of Blairite market-driven public services, should feel the need to defend capitalist structures.

"Those licking their lips at the prospect of an end to market capitalism - as distinct from an end to this particular form of unbridled financial markets - are gorging on a beast that still has life in it", he said this afternoon.

David Cameron argues the same point. "People don't want to abandon markets, they want us to reform markets so they work properly," he said this morning.

Is it a tweak to an engine that is misfiring slightly, or has the big end gone? Do people believe the machine needs retuning... or redesigning?

Reading Gordon Brown's thoughts on the global crisis last week, I was reminded of Tony Blair's memorable phrase after 9/11: "the kaleidoscope has been shaken, the pieces are in flux". In his foreword to the Public Services White paper, Mr Brown wrote:

Times of profound change are often the catalyst for fundamental revaluations in how we think and act. The present financial crisis is changing the way governments serve the public: forcing us to reflect anew on the role of the state in a truly global age.

Al-Qaeda attempted to weaken Western capitalism with terror. But in the end, it was far more threatened by its own greed and, as both Messrs Cameron and Brown put it, its lack of morals.

The prime minister puts it this way: "Both state and market must be underpinned by the ethics of opportunity and responsibility, and thus the question is not whether markets tame government or vice versa: the question is how we tame both with an ethic of fairness and duty."

Next month, at the G20 meeting in London's Docklands, we are told that "known activists" are "plotting a series of demonstrations". Anarchists and environmentalists are "re-emerging and forming new alliances", according to Cdr Bob Broadhurst at Scotland Yard.

But how different is the rhetoric of "G20 Meltdown" from that of mainstream politicians?

"Capitalism has been heating up our world for years, melting the icecaps, burning up the rainforests, pushing the planet to tipping point", the protesters claim. "Now we're going to put the heat on them.

"Their tax-dodging, bonus-guzzling, pension-pinching, unregulated free market world's in meltdown, and those fools think we're going to bail them out. They've gotta be joking!"

This argument can no longer be dismissed as a fringe manifesto from the usual suspects. What Alan Milburn describes as an "epoch of excess" is to be discussed by the Archbishop of Canterbury among others at a Guardian debate next Monday. The flyer says that the expert panel will discuss whether "a devotion to the free-market model has weakened community ties, created a moral vacuum and left us more vulnerable to the recession".

The former speech writer for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, Peggy Noonan, has been reflecting on public reaction to the downturn in the United States. Last week in her column in the Wall Street Journal, she wrote this:

People sense something slipping away, a world receding, not only an economic one but a world of old structures, old ways and assumptions.

And the previous month she was even more portentous:

This isn't like the stock market crash of 1987 or the collapse of the dot-com bubble in 2001. People are not feeling passing anger or disappointment, they're feeling truly frightened.
The reasons:
This isn't stock market heebie-jeebies, it's systemic collapse. It's not just here, it's global.
It's not only economic, but political. It wasn't only mortgage companies that acted up and acted out, so did our government, all the governments of the West, spending what they didn't have, for a decade at least.

Forty years ago, Joni Mitchell's anthem for the Woodstock festival described how "we've got to get ourselves back to the garden".

There was a powerful sense of society restructuring itself around the participants - a feeling that the "kaleidoscope has been shaken".

As I read of a Woodstock revival this year, apparently "free and totally green" in contrast to the consumerist events of 1994 and 1999, I recall another few lines from Mitchell's song:

I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man.

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Is it true that Mullah Omar, the publicity-shy head of the Taleban, has been snapped coming out of a DIY superstore in Sheffield with a tub of tile grout? If so, it would be the only verified photograph of the reclusive Afghan.

No, I made it up. But even if he had been captured on Google's new Street View maps, their technology means that his face would have been automatically blurred.

My Map of the Week this week provides a picture of British life in soft focus.

So assiduous is the tool that even the face in the Bobby Sands mural in Belfast has also been obscured.

The Manchester United star Cristiano Ronaldo is blurred on a poster at Old Trafford - a wonderful example of what can happen when anxieties over our "surveillance society" collide with our "celebrity culture".

This is a man whose image is among the most recognisable on the planet. But on Street View, he is just another blob.

We live in a society where many people believe that fame equals fortune equals fulfilment. It was this narrative that provided the backdrop to the public life and death of Jade Goody.

Whether it be the YouTube wannabes or the reality TV hopefuls, there is a never-ending supply of people prepared to parade their lack of talent and abundance of self-belief. If only enough people could see my face, they seem to suggest, then happiness and immortality will be mine.

I suspect that if word had got out, crowds of exhibitionists would have been on the pavements to greet Google's fleet of camera cars as they toured and snapped the UK.

There is a disturbing desperation in some of those prepared to expose their weaknesses and prejudices in return for publicity. Like those kids who delight in jumping up and down and waving at my camera when I am out filming, we see grown men and women proudly humiliate themselves on any media available.

Yet, in sharp (or should I say blurry) contrast, there are those who worry our society is suffering from exposure. They demand the right to hide away, to opt out of the digital chronicle being compiled by a million cameras.

Indeed, such is the anxiety and the sense that publicity is inherently dangerous, that we obscure scenes that anyone might witness looking out of a bus.

In recent years, it has become normal to portray the lives of young people in Britain with pictures of their footwear. BBC Television is not alone in concluding that it is often wise to disguise the identities of children walking home from school by focusing on their scuffed trainers.

When far-off historians come to study the early 21st century, they may speculate on Britain's curious foot fetish.

I do understand that there is a responsibility on publishers and broadcasters to protect the vulnerable, but is there not a middle ground between intrusive long-lens shots and routine anonymising?

At a conference on youth crime I attended last week, there was a debate as to whether young offenders being interviewed about how they had turned their lives around should be routinely "blobbed".

The argument in favour is that it is impossible to know how a young person's appearance might negatively affect their life chances. However, there are those who fear that never looking into the eyes of children who have misbehaved risks turning them into a faceless monsters.

Talking of which, does it not seem curious that the mother of our democracy has reportedly decided to blob herself?

Parts of the Palace of Westminster are unavailable on Google's Street View - one presumes for "security" reasons, even though any would-be Guy Fawkes can join the thousands of tourists snapping away.

Update 1433: Three more blurred Google faces have been sent to me.

The first is a bit of Banksy graffiti in east London [see image on right].

The other two [see below] are further examples of the publicity/privacy clash.

If you find any more, do post them here - leave a comment or a link in the comments box below.

Update 1532: Another example, a grotesque in Cambridge, is highlighted by the New Scientist.

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The statisticians were right and the home secretary was wrong. Now there are those who wonder whether Jacqui Smith will go back to the House of Commons to put the record straight.

No correction has issued from the Home Office after the publication of official statistics which demonstrate, as the NHS stats people had warned, that those controversial figures on stab wounds trumpeted last December were indeed "potentially inaccurate and may possibly give the wrong impression" (see the email trail here). One might think that put it generously. The data were wrong. And they clearly gave the wrong impression.

Far from demonstrating the success of the government's plans, the figures used by the Home Office could be interpreted as evidence that the "Tackling Knives Action Plan" (TKAP) was having a negative effect - although that suggestion is as unlikely as the assertion that the programme was having an instant and positive impact.

Claim: The Home Office "fact sheet" said that hospital admissions for assault by a sharp object were down 27% in areas targeted by the government's action programme.

Reality: The official data, published independently of government, show hospital admissions down just 8.6% in those areas.

A welcome fall, but as reported here before, the numbers of patients turning up at A&E had fallen 11% in the three months before the Home Office action plan was introduced.

In fact, if you look what happened in the first couple of months after TKAP's introduction (July to August 2008), hospital admissions for stab wounds in the target areas went up.

Monthly activity: admissions for assault by sharp object, all ages; source: Hospital Episode Statistics, NHS Information Centre

The home secretary has already apologised to Parliament once - but only for being "too quick off the mark with the publication of one number in relation to the progress that had been made with tackling knife crime." But some MPs think that she has more to say sorry for.

Jacqui Smith has not apologised for getting her figures wrong, for ignoring the warnings and entreaties of statisticians who correctly feared that the unverified data would prove to inaccurate, for misleading Parliament and the public about the success of the TKAP campaign or for decisions "corrosive of public trust in official statistics".

And what some judge so counter-productive about this episode is that all the evidence points to a good news story on knife crime. There was no "epidemic"; indeed, incidents appeared to be stable or falling before the media and political frenzy last spring (as the table above suggests).

But some, including the head of the statistics watchdog, suggest that such was the government's determination to prove cause and effect and to demonstrate that their response was working, that ministers and their aides appear to have put short-term political gain ahead of long-term public trust.

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You may recall that last month I asked the home secretary why her infamous knife crime fact sheet had failed to mention that hospital figures for stab wounds were going down before her "Tackling Knives Action Programme" (TKAP) was introduced.

Well, she never replied directly to me but today a Home Office press release finally admits the truth:

"Recently published NHS data for 2007-08 (which pre-dates TKAP), showed an 8% reduction in the overall number of admissions to hospital for assault by sharp object."

I am delighted that this important fact is now in the public domain. Nevertheless, it only adds to the mystery as to why the Home Office decided not to mention it last December when anxieties about knife crime were much higher.

Today's release poses a new riddle, however.

Q: When is a "targeted approach to tackling knives" not a "targeted approach to tackling knives"?
A: When it targets all weapons and violent juvenile crime in all its forms.

In one breath, we are told that an extra £5m is to be used "to extend the government's Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) for another year and to include two new police force areas: Kent and Hampshire".

In another, we are told the money will be used "to tackle a minority of young people who commit serious violence, regardless of the weapon involved".

So not just knives but fists, boots, baseball bats, guns...

We learn that "the programme is developing a broader focus across the wider ACPO violence and public protection portfolio".

The Association of Chief Police Officers welcomes the decision to "coordinate the police service response to violence in all its forms, and the time is now right to expand our approach".

Am I alone in thinking that what the Home Office is actually doing is quietly dumping its focused anti-knife campaign in favour of a broader anti-violence programme?

One can see why ministers should want to downplay this policy shift. Can you imagine the way some of the government's opponents might portray it? "Home Office abandons knife crackdown."

The change seems to make sense, however. If police are so busy looking for blades that they neglect other forms of serious violence, the campaign rather defeats its own object.

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I call it "coach crash syndrome". No sooner have we digested the details of a particularly nasty accident involving a coach, than drivers all over Britain career off the road, killing and injuring their passengers.

It is an illusion, of course. What has happened is that the first incident has given coach crashes added newsworthiness. Fatal road accidents which would normally be ignored by the media become front page headlines.

It is the same with knife crime. A year ago, stabbings bubbled up the news agenda and became part of the national conversation. Violence which had been part of the grim background noise of our society was amplified by the press and so it appeared that young men were dying from knives in unprecedented and terrifying numbers.

However, scrutiny of the figures (and we will get more on Thursday) suggests the "epidemic" was a political and media creation. Each incident is a tragedy, but there is little evidence that such crimes are becoming significantly more frequent.

Nevertheless, sudden concentration upon crimes involving blades prompted the Home Office to launch their Tackling Knives Action Programme with great fanfare. You will almost certainly find that legislation to improve safety on coaches was announced after a whole series of road accident stories appeared in the media.

I am prompted to write about "coach crash syndrome" following last night's shocking story of the young mother jailed for eight years after a court heard of the horrific cruelty she meted out to her two-month-old baby son.

The case, inevitably, is described as having "echoes of the Baby P scandal", and it is right that we recognise that the Haringey tragedy did not herald an end to horrific abuse of children.

There have been a clutch of other national news stories revealing appalling child cruelty and neglect recently - in Doncaster, Dundee, Sheffield and Birmingham. One might be forgiven for imagining that we are witness to a new and appalling wave of brutality.

Here again, though, I suggest we are seeing media interest in ghastly court cases which might previously have been off the press radar.

Latest Ministry of Justice figures for England and Wales show that 493 people were found guilty of child cruelty or neglect in 2007 - 233 men and 260 women. That's hundreds of court cases - enough to provide the newspapers with a story or two every day.

Sixty-nine children were victims of homicide in the most recent annual figures and it is estimated 43 of those youngsters were killed by a parent. That suggests a child dies at the hands of their mum or dad every eight or nine days in England and Wales. And those statistics take no account of a wide range of offence categories which might disguise the brutal maltreatment of a little boy or girl.

One only has to look at the latest figures for children subject to child protection plans [pdf link] to get an idea of the prevalence of serious abuse.

These are figures for England alone: 5,000 children are registered as having suffered physical abuse; 2,300 are being monitored because of sexual abuse, shocking numbers that actually reflect a slight decline in recent years.

On Thursday we get Lord Laming's thoughts on how child protection services can improve in England, a review prompted by the Baby P tragedy. I cannot help but wonder, however, why we had to wait for that high-profile case to inspire reflection.

Like coach crashes and stabbings, horrific child abuse cases are neither rare nor new.

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Are British workers unwilling to do some British jobs?

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson's assertion that foreign nationals are helping to fill vacancies which locals are "either not available to fill or are unwilling to fill" has caused some controversy.

He argues that there are some half a million vacancies in the UK - which shows, he claims, that "there are jobs available for British nationals despite the circulation of workers that has resulted from EU enlargement".

So what do the latest (Q4 2008) data tell us?

I have been wandering around the official labour market stats on the website of the Office for National Statistics to try to get some answers.

Firstly, a quick overview of Britain in terms of vacancies notified to job centres.

Yes, there are jobs out there - more than 193,000 having been notified to Jobcentre Plus. More interesting, perhaps, is the relationship between those job vacancies and people claiming Jobseekers' Allowance (JSA).

If we take the East Midlands, for example, we can see that in some parts of the region there are 22 JSA claimants chasing every job. In other parts, it is as low as two unemployed people per vacancy.

The areas in dark blue are West Lindsey (22.6) and East Lindsey (19.9) - the places which saw the angry protests over British jobs for British workers in January.

But the large pale area just to the west of them is Newark and Sherwood, where there are just 1.8 JSA claimants for each notified vacancy.

I imagine some might ask why jobseekers in Lindsey do not travel the few miles to Newark in pursuit of work.

The story is even more stark in London.

In the borough of Hackney, 32 people are apparently chasing every job - but in Westminster, it is just three.

You can check out the situation in your local area in this spreadsheet [56Kb MS Excel format].

There are some places in the country where there are more jobs than jobseekers. Using a different database, but working from the same official statistics, I took a close look at the story in Brighton.

The economic consultancy Gavurin has created what it calls a recession map. You can register to use the system here.

Going down to ward level, one can see that there are three parts of Brighton that each has between 90 and 660 vacancies.

In fact, it turns out that the middle of the three yellow areas is called Brighton and Hove 027. In this small part of the city, there are 657 vacancies, mostly "customer service" jobs. However, there are only 317 people claiming JSA in the ward - the largest group aged between 20 and 24.

I cannot be sure, but I wonder whether many of the claimants are former students who would rather claim the dole than stack shelves in the local supermarket.

Obviously, there are all sorts of issues around the way vacancies and jobseekers are counted. The City of London is a case in point: on paper, there are three jobs for every unemployed person in the area, but that is because very few people actually live within the Corporation's boundaries.

I would be grateful for any thoughts you might have on what the wide variations in JSA:vacancy rates tell us about the willingness of British workers to fill half a million British job vacancies.

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Are you missing the thrill of driving a new car? The excitement of box-fresh shoes? The joy of unwrapping expensive paper and bows?

The collapse in car sales and job losses and closures in the High Street are signs that the recession is affecting habits as well as economics. In a society where high status is often measured by new stuff, we are weaning ourselves off our addiction to the latest model.

The British national sport of shopping is in decline. Conspicuous consumption, in the words apparently of the fashion industry, is "so last August". Bling is no longer the thing. Old is the new new.

I was struck this weekend by a quote in the Daily Telegraph from Waitrose's commercial director Richard Hodgson. "We have found some customers putting their Waitrose goods in Tesco bags, because they are nervous that their neighbours will think they are decadent for shopping at Waitrose."

He was speaking after the upmarket grocer had announced it was introducing an "essential Waitrose" range - lower-cost basics sold in simple white packaging. Austerity is all the rage.

An email I received from New York recently reveals plans for a nationwide "Curb Day" in the US.

I know that there is a culture of "garage sales" in the States, but I wonder if, in the current climate, this could catch on here. In my street, it already happens in an informal way. People leave bulky items for the council under a tree and other residents unashamedly check them out and drag off anything they fancy.

It is a form of recycling that relies on people not being obsessed with the new. Some argue that the only way out of the current recession is for people to "shop 'til they drop". But others believe it offers an opportunity for our society to rethink its throwaway culture.

Last month, the Chairman of the Local Government Association, Margaret Eaton, described Britain as "the dustbin of Europe", with more rubbish being thrown into landfill than almost any other country in the EU.

In fact, there is some good news to tell on this. According to recent figures, the amount of trash destined for landfill appears to be falling - at its lowest level since the early nineties.

Household waste per person 1991-2 to 2006-7, from Defra

Nevertheless, the LGA estimates that local authorities in England and Wales will spend £1.8bn on landfill tax between 2008 and 2011. "Taxpayers don't want to see their money going towards paying landfill taxes and EU fines when council tax could be reduced instead", Cllr Eaton said.

All of which brings me to my Map of the Week. It can be found on the Environment Agency website as an answer to the question "What's in Your Backyard?".

These maps offer people in England and Wales a chance to see what secrets there might be near their homes - a landfill site filled with toxic waste, for example.

By way of illustration, here is a view of Manchester and its surroundings. It is interesting to see how the rubbish dumps radiate out from the city centre, overflowing down railway lines, rivers and canals.

Here you can see the landfill sites clustered along the Manchester Ship Canal. The pink areas are historical sites no longer in use; the brown areas are still active. (Interesting colour choice.)

And finally, you can zoom into a specific location to check out the dump. Click on it and you get the details.

So I can now tell you that the charmingly named Randle Island site is filled with hazardous waste. "This is waste that may be harmful to human health or the environment e.g. asbestos, chemicals, healthcare waste, electrical equipment, lead-acid batteries, oily sludges and pesticides."

The odour, I suspect, is the very opposite of "new car smell".

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As typing mistakes go, it is a pretty embarrassing one. And rather telling. I notice that the Youth Justice Board's annual workload report claims that for young people locked up in England and Wales "the average length of time spent in custody has decreased".

This [2,709Kb PDF] is the original version of 5 March; this [2,700Kb PDF] is the updated version of 6 March.

Unfortunately, elsewhere in the report they directly contradict this.

Here, they are claiming that the "increase in the average length of sentence has put increased pressure on all three types of establishments where young offenders are held".

They cannot both be right. A table suggests that time in custody is increasing...

...but a call to the YJB, and they tell me the dates are all wrong. Our conversation went along these lines:

- Okay, so you are saying that custody lengths are falling, right?
- Right.
- So how is that you argue elsewhere in the report that the "increase" in custody lengths explains why young offenders are getting poorer education and training?
- Er...

This is the analysis explaining how the average time spent behind bars has affected services.

"Reduced performance" in the education and training offered in Secure Training Centres (STCs) is a disaster for young people who are trying to get back on the straight and narrow when they are released.

Literacy and numeracy are getting worse in these youth prisons - last year saw the poorest results ever posted.

It appears that the YJB has been caught trying to blame the courts for its own failings.

What's more, the Youth Offending Teams (YOTs), which supervise all young people dealt with by the courts in England and Wales, also failed to meet their targets on "education, training and employment" - even though it is accepted that "ETE" has a "significant impact on reoffending".

Following my call, the YJB tells me that the report will be pulled from the website and that a corrected version will go out. The table will be amended. The analysis will be erased.

But the confusion over whether children and young people are spending an average of 76 or 78 days inside when sent to custody does not explain the board's failures when it comes to locking them up.

The YJB is committed to reducing the number of children and young people incarcerated in the "juvenile estate". But the report confirms that it has missed the target. It was supposed to cut youth custody numbers by 10% from March 2005 to March 2008.

There were 2,676 youngsters locked up four years ago. By March last year, therefore, the number should have fallen to 2,408. In fact, there were 3,004 - an increase of 12%.

How the YJB can describe this failure in their report as a target "almost achieved" is beyond me, not least because the rise occurred at a time when the YJB says that there were "17,143 fewer crimes committed by young people".

The key tool for reducing custody has been ISSPs - Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programmes.

The YJB describes them as "rigorous non-custodial sentences which combine high levels of community-based surveillance with a comprehensive and sustained focus on tackling the factors that contribute to a young person's offending behaviour".

The trouble is that ISSPs appear to be making the problem worse, not better. They require a lot of young people whose lives can often be pretty chaotic - with poor family support and often involving drugs and alcohol.

The YJB report reveals that 5,000 of these orders were made, but only 53% were successfully completed - the lowest-ever level. More than 1,600 young people were sent back to court for breaching their ISSP and half of those were then sentenced to custody.

An audit on the YJB by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies last year suggested that the ISSP was being used, not as an alternative to custody, but to "replace other, less demanding, community sentences".

The analysis goes on to suggest that "stricter enforcement procedures for breaches of ISSPs have also been a factor in the rise in the number of children in prison".

So, many of the 848 children and young people who ended up behind bars for breaching their ISSP might not have been facing custody in the first place. And far from reducing numbers in the juvenile estate, the programme is contributing to an increase.

It is a bit like a typo that says average time in custody is "decreasing" when it is actually rising. Only you can't send out an erratum slip for a mistake which damages a vulnerable child's prospects.

Update Monday 0919: Grammatical slip corrected; thanks to commenter bere54.

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A fascinating set of e-mails [283 Kb PDF] has just been published that covers roughly 24 hours around the release of that controversial knife crime "fact sheet" on the morning of 11th December last year.

You may recall how I have been covering the inadequacies of the release ever since, starting here and continuing here, here, here and here.

The electronic exchange shows how it is possible for a special advisor in Gordon Brown's office to overrule the anxieties of senior statisticians.

I am told that senior civil servants are outraged that the Public Administration Select Committee - the all-party group investigating the affair - has chosen to put the e-mails up on its website. But to me, they provide important evidence of the power wielded by special advisors at the summit of government.

The first is a note from an advisor in Number Ten called Matt Cavanagh to another special advisor at the Department of Health, Mario Dunn. In it, Mr Cavanagh quotes a line on "knife wounding figures" that, he says "the PM would like us to publish tomorrow".

So, assuming Mr Cavanagh has checked, Gordon Brown himself is apparently keen to use this very specific figure on patients admitted to hospital with stab wounds. Downing Street knows that "these figs are provisional" and promises to make that clear in the release. (They never did.) Mr Dunn sends the request on to a Department of Health official assuming that this will be fine.

However, the health official has spoken to the statisticians involved in putting together the data. There is a "deadline" of just 45 minutes to provide clearance.

Notice how the original wording is altered. Downing Street wanted to call the category of hospital admission "knife or sharp instrument woundings" - stressing how these data are about people stabbed with a blade. Mario Dunn prefers a more accurate description: "assault by a sharp object (including knives)".

Then comes the bad news for Number Ten. Just four minutes before the 2pm deadline, the statisticians at the NHS Information Centre make it clear that their view is that the provisional figures "are NOT released". They explain how "they are potentially inaccurate and may possibly give the wrong impression".

But Downing Street are, apparently, unimpressed. In an e-mail from an official at the Department of Health, copied to Alan Johnson's special advisor, we learn that while the DH "would not seek to overrule the Information Centre on this matter... Number 10 are adamant about the need to publish this statistic".

As revealed on this blog last week, the e-mail goes on to say that Downing Street "are likely to publish the data irrespective of the concerns raised".

Forty minutes later, the chief statistician at the NHS Information Centre, Andy Sutherland writes back. He is not a happy man.

The last line of his missive may well come to haunt Gordon Brown. "This will look to observers as if the govt has cherry picked the good news and forced out publication for political ends - is this really what they want?"

Mr Sutherland then informs the Office for National Statistics.

The following morning at 8.35 - a few hours before the official release of the "fact sheet", but after some journalists have been sent it - Mike Hughes from the ONS reveals that the National Statistician, Karen Dunnell has been on the phone...

At just after 11am, Mr Hughes writes to an (unnamed) official at Number Ten making it clear that, as revealed here last week, the figures had been prepared on the understanding that "the figures aren't final and aren't for publication".

The official says he is "pursuing urgently".

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Two worlds collide: Planet Statistics, a strict environment governed by evidence and hard data, has once again smashed into Planet Westminster, an ecosystem run on much more subtle rules around public opinion and mood management.

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas' 'leaked' letter bemoaning the "naive" and potentially "sinister" decision of the Office for National Statistics to release migration figures early because they were "topical", is part of the wreckage from this culture clash.

As is statistics watchdog Sir Michael Scholar's accusation that statisticians are being "pilloried" for publishing independent and objective statistics.

What this is really about is the well-oiled wheels of the government communication machine being frustrated by the grit of tough new rules on the use of official data.

It was Gordon Brown who, as Chancellor, championed the introduction of a strict code on the use of government statistics. He was anxious at the lack of public trust in official figures and promised a "new politics" free of spin and manipulation.

But almost immediately, his own staff fell foul of the new rules in spectacular fashion. Last December, a special advisor in Gordon Brown's office demanded the Home Office publish helpful statistics on hospital admissions for stab wounds even though No 10 had been told by senior stats people that the figures were "potentially inaccurate and may give the wrong impression".

After Sir Michael complained to Downing Street that the affair had been "corrosive of public trust in official statistics", the head of the Civil Service, Sir Gus O'Donnell, revealed in a letter that all officials and advisors had been told of "the importance the Government and permanent secretaries attach to the observance of the Statistics Code".

Every spin doctor and press officer was reminded that they could not play fast and loose with official figures. The code was clear. They must:
• Publish statistical reports in an orderly manner.
• Publish statistical reports according to a published timetable.
• Present statistics impartially and objectively.
• Ensure that those producing statistical reports are protected from any political pressures that might influence the production or presentation of the statistics.

This was a massive cultural shock for those in government who had been used to "managing" the flow of such information. Power had flowed from the spin doctors to the number-crunchers and ministers were frustrated.

Frustration turned to anger, however, when last month the ONS brought forward the release of sensitive new figures on immigration because the National Statistician, Karen Dunnell, thought they were 'topical'.

The statistics, showing how foreign migrant jobs had increased while domestic employment had fallen, emerged in the midst of the wild cat strikes over 'British jobs for British workers'. But the numbers were not due to be released until last week as part of the regular migration statistics.

In science terms it made sense: ongoing public debate about nationality and employment would be enriched by having hard data made available.

In political terms it was highly controversial: ministers have accused the ONS of "playing politics" and naivety in releasing information that inflamed an already difficult situation. The opposition has accused the government of launching "hysterical rants against the independent statistics office".

Ministerial teeth-gnashing is all the greater because of a perceived unfairness. While government must abide by the rules, opposition politicians don't have to. Cabinet Minister Kevin Brennan recently suggested there might be an agreement that if Whitehall stuck to the code, so must the government's opponents. But he must realise that this would be almost impossible to enforce and might frustrate scrutiny of the executive.

The big idea behind the creation of a statistics code was to "build public trust and confidence in the statistical system as a whole". The rows and scandals surrounding its introduction are likely to have achieved quite the opposite.

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Whitehall belts may be tightening, but the government has found millions to fight killer fungus. Regular readers may recall I charted the spread of the misnamed "sudden oak death" disease at the end of last year.

Phytophthora ramorum and Phytophthora kernoviae are strains of a deadly plant disease plaguing historic gardens, woodland and heathlands across England, Wales and parts of Scotland.

According to environment minister Jane Kennedy, who today announced £25m for a five-year eradication programme in England and Wales, "if this disease spreads, it could mean parts of the countryside being cordoned off, and more limited public access - in addition to further loss of our precious woodland".

But eradication comes at a price, too. The main source of the disease is the Rhododendron ponticum which has invaded many large public gardens and historic estates. A cost-benefit analysis for the government last year [185k PDF] spelled out what is now going to happen. "Removal of plants may change the appearance of gardens to an extent where the public are deterred from visiting."

The problem is particularly acute in Cornwall. Analysis by South West Tourism suggests that there are 45 gardens in the county likely to be affected. In 2001, they attracted more than 2.8m visitors, generating £23m and directly employing nearly 700 people.

"A loss of confidence in a garden's ability to manage its plant collection or its ability to protect visitors from carrying either disease away with them is likely to have a significant impact on visitor numbers and plant sales," the government's analysis warns.

"Gardens would need to manage their way through the diseases by moving to plantings of non-susceptible plants over a period of time. This would involve the loss of feature specimens of historic significance and in some instances may change the character of gardens substantially. The cost of such a transition ... is likely to run into some £millions."

Nevertheless, this is the cost-benefit calculation that was put to ministers. Option 1 is, effectively, doing nothing. Option 2 is the eradication programme. The costs are calculated over 20 years.

So, £25m over five years is a determined effort to deal with this menace and the black grouse and the capercaillie among others should be delighted. One of the big concerns has been the spread of the disease to heathland via the bilberry. The loss of such habitat could be disastrous for some ground-nesting birds like the grouse.

The money also represents a victory for organisations like the National Trust and the Forestry Commission who had been campaigning for resources to deal with this deadly invader. In Scotland, incidentally, there is a separate consultation which will decide upon a plan in due course.

PS: The post referred to above also has details of how to report suspected outbreaks.

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I fear I have been very remiss with my Map of the Week feature. In danger of heading for ignominious "Map of the, er... Month" territory, I have knocked up one of my own in the hope that this might temporarily assuage the cravings of any cartophiles out there.

Regular readers will know that I recently spent a week in the Lake District. While out walking with my family on the banks of Buttermere, my daughter pointed out a red squirrel. This was shortly having visited Beatrix Potter's cottage and I was dubious at first. But sure enough, there looking at us from a dry-stone wall was Squirrel Nutkin himself. I had never seen a red before and was enchanted as the creature calmly trotted along the coping stones and off into the woods. They have a reputation for timidity, but this chap seemed entirely unmoved by our presence.
I wanted to find out how unusual such a sighting is these days and headed for the excellent NBN Gateway.

This site allows you to make your own maps charting the biodiversity of Britain. Thousands of plants, fungi and invertebrates, hundreds of birds and fishes, scores of mammals, 17 reptiles, 13 amphibians and one simple organism (the protozoa) are on the giant database.

I selected Eurasian Red Squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris) and clicked through to the section which allows you to put your map together. This is the result of my efforts:

10km distribution scriurus vulgaris in Great Britain and Ireland

I was then able to zoom in to Cumbria (although the county system still refers to it as Cumberland).

2km distribution of sciurus vulgaris in Cumberland

My squirrel appears to have been closest to the lower of the two dark green squares, but I suspect that the map needs some updating given the work of the Save our Squirrels project - the largest single-species conservation project taking place in the UK at present.

Launched in July 2006, the project has the remit to deliver red squirrel conservation, information, and access projects in Northumberland, Cumbria, North Yorkshire, and North Merseyside.

Here is where SoS is working to save the red, including sanctuaries in large parts of the Lake District National Park.

Scotland also has a huge project aimed at supporting and encouraging the red squirrel.

Wales has a very successful project on Anglesey, where conservationists have eradicated the grey from the island and have reintroduced the red. There are now thriving communities of red squirrels, although occasionally a grey does make it across the bridge, apparently.

Given that even I can manage to put together a biodiversity map, I wondered whether I could issue a challenge. I would like to see who can produce the best map showing the changing biodiversity of Britain using the NBN Gateway. Post the URL of the page of your completed table as a comment (using a service like bit.ly or TinyURL to deal with those very long addresses!). The best ones will feature as a Map of the Week.

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Journeying across the TV schedules in the last few days, I feel like Gulliver.

On Thursday I was at "Masterchef HQ" (Masterchef BBC1) for the series final, a place where inhabitants shout their conversations. "I THOUGHT THE PORK WAS A BIT UNDERDONE!!!"

Yesterday, I found myself in Candleford (Lark Rise to Candleford BBC1) where locals barely trouble their vocal chords, conducting even the most mundane communication in a breathy whisper.

Different communities, societies and cultures do have the volume set differently. The study of "proxemics" measures how far apart people like to be when conducting different kinds of conversation. The term was coined by American anthropologist Edward T. Hall who found anything below 1.5 feet is deemed intimate space for Americans.

In Latin cultures, however, people tend to be more comfortable standing closer to each other. In Nordic cultures, the opposite is true. The result is that Peruvians will tend to chase Norwegians around a room, the Scandinavian backing away until pinned to a wall.

When people get the local volume-proximity rules wrong, it can get others hot under the collar.

My reaction to the two Masterchef presenters bellowing at each other apparently only inches apart is mild amusement. But in the real world, people talking too loudly - on a mobile phone, for example - can threaten public order.

The classic example of that irritating passenger shouting into their mobile on a train is really the consequence of a conflict between two different communication environments.

The phone user sets speaking volume in relation to a perceived distance between them and the person on the other end of the line. However, other passengers see the conversation in terms of the proximity of people on the train.

Occasionally, this situation can get out of hand. In the United States in 2004, a pregnant woman was apparently knocked to the ground, handcuffed and arrested at a Washington DC metro station for talking too loudly on her cellphone.

The joy of using mobiles on a plane is now available on some airlines. Expect "I AM JUST PASSING OVER CROYDON NOW!!!" followed by loud tutting at 35,000 feet.

There are others who find whispering equally unacceptable. Those advertisements that breathe at us about how utterly orgasmic a chocolate pudding tastes employ a tone of intimacy that I would normally reserve for my closest friends and family. There is something presumptuous about the confidential delivery, I think - a bit like an Ecuadorean furniture rep at an Ikea conference, perhaps.

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