Robert Cuffe
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robertcuffe.bsky.social
Robert Cuffe
@robertcuffe.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.3K following 27 posts
BBC News’s statistician. Number nerd 24-7-365.2425
Posts Replies Media Videos
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Record low murder rate in England and Wales
November 10, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
darrenmacey.bsky.social
We would love to hear your thoughts on our new set of maths teaching resources, developed in partnership with @mathsweek.scot
Please share widely! @robertcuffe.bsky.social @rssedinburgh.bsky.social @rss-teach.bsky.social #MathsWeekScot
Stats in the Wild - Maths Week Scotland
This set of bespoke evidence-based resources are for exploring statistics using outdoor maths.
mathsweek.scot
September 14, 2025 at 8:26 AM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Surely should be a portrait of Notey McNoteface?

British Bulldogs to Basil Fawlty - your banknote redesign ideas www.bbc.com/news/article...
Your banknote redesign ideas - from British Bulldogs to Basil Fawlty
The Bank of England wants views on themes for its next series of banknotes, and BBC readers are full of ideas.
www.bbc.com
July 4, 2025 at 1:34 PM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Strong +1. Civil service statisticians made excellent technical contributions to recent UK Statistics Assembly.
instituteforgovernment.org.uk Institute for Government @instituteforgovernment.org.uk · Jun 26
The government should not ban public servants from speaking in public

A private instruction that prevents government officials from speaking at public events is counter-productive. It will lead to a more closed government and less effective policy www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/comment/gove...
The government should not ban public servants from speaking in public | Institute for Government
New guidance will damage the quality of government and public discourse.
www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk
June 27, 2025 at 7:37 AM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
UK's data agency has 'deep seated' issues, review finds

ONS will reallocate ~10m worth of FTE to fix core econ stats
National Stato job will be split into two: technical + running org
Govt will look at the legislation defining roles and governance of UK stats

www.bbc.com/news/article...
June 26, 2025 at 6:32 PM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Among the new BBC editorial guidelines taking effect in September is an expanded chapter on stats, data, polls and surveys

www.bbc.co.uk/editorialgui...
Section 11: Statistics, Data, Polls and Surveys
Sections 11.1, 11.2 and 11.3
www.bbc.co.uk
June 24, 2025 at 10:17 AM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Trump announces 20% ‘reciprocal’ tariffs for EU. 10% for UK.
April 2, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
statspeter.bsky.social
Our complaint re the growth in health benefits has been upheld: osr.statisticsauthority.gov.uk/corresponden...: "The statement that the number of people claiming disability elements of Universal Credit has increased by 383% presents an entirely misleading picture to the public."
April 1, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
mattashby.com
The head of Amnesty International UK claims in this Guardian article that "The evidence that [predictive policing] keeps us safe just isn’t there". But that's simply not true.

Let's look at what the best-available evidence on predictive policing shows …

🧵

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
UK use of predictive policing is racist and should be banned, says Amnesty
Exclusive: rights group says use of algorithms and data reinforces discrimination in UK policing
www.theguardian.com
February 20, 2025 at 2:10 PM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Pretty poor stats from UK Home Office yesterday.
Firstly, misleading to say 19k people were removed. Most "returns" (this stat) are people who left voluntarily, most often those who left of their own accord and whose departure the Home Office only discovered later when (e.g.) checking visa data.
Home Office Tweet. Text says "Through our Plan for Change, we have removed almost 19,000 people including failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and immigration offenders from the UK since July 2024." Screengrab of Home Office stats showing that the single largest category of returns are "other verified returns": people who left the country of their own accord and whose departure was discovered later by the Home Office.
February 11, 2025 at 4:48 PM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
school absence fines (mainly for unauthorised holidays) up by a quarter to record levels.

explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statist...
The number of penalty notices issued to parents for taking their children on family holidays has hit a record high, according to figures released today by the Department for Education. There were just over 443,000 penalty notices issued for unauthorised family holidays in the 2023/24 academic year, up by a quarter on the previous year and the highest number since records began in 2009/10. This has pushed the total number of penalty notices issued for unauthorised absence in the same academic year to 487,344, an increase of 22% from the previous year and also the highest number since records began in 2009/10. Penalty notices are issued to parents for failing to ensure that their child attends school. In 2023/24 they were for £60 if paid within 21 days of receipt rising to £120 if paid after 21 days. If the penalty is not paid within 28 days, the local authority must either prosecute for the original offence or withdraw the notice.
January 30, 2025 at 10:11 AM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
ourworldindata.org
The world has probably passed “peak air pollution”
The image shows a series of six line graphs depicting the trends in global emissions of different pollutants from 1750 to 2022. The title reads "The world has passed 'peak pollution'," indicating that emissions of several pollutants have declined since their peak levels, except for ammonia. The pollutants shown are: - Sulphur dioxide (SO₂) – peaked in the mid-20th century and has since declined. - Nitrogen oxide (NOx) – followed a similar pattern, peaking around the late 20th century and then dropping. - Carbon monoxide (CO) – peaked mid-20th century and declined. - Black carbon (BC) – shows a rise until recently, followed by a drop. - Organic carbon (OC) – has risen steadily with a recent plateau. - Ammonia (NH₃) – continues to rise without a recent decline.
January 28, 2025 at 7:09 PM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Another record low in planning applications submitted and decided in England.

www.gov.uk/government/s...
Line chart showing the number of planning applications received, granted and decided in England. All three have been trending down fairly steadily in recent years.
January 16, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
edconway.bsky.social
🚨How worried should Rachel Reeves be about rising bond yields?
😨How worried should the rest of us be?
😱And is this a repeat of 2022 (or even worse)?
After all, UK 30yr govt bond yields are now at the HIGHEST level in more than a quarter century.
📽️My 4min explainer👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mDx...
Long-term borrowing costs hit new high | Ed Conway analysis
YouTube video by Sky News
www.youtube.com
January 8, 2025 at 5:45 PM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Here's what happened to the price of government borrowing in the week of the mini-Budget. The BoE announcement had an effect. So did the mini-Budget. So did Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng saying there was "more to come" that weekend.
Line chart showing the cost of UK government bonds in the week around the Truss/Kwarteng mini-Budget. After months of steady, gentle rises, rates picked up sharply on Thursday after the Bank of England announced interest rates. They then picked up sharply again on Friday after the mini-Budget and again by more on the Monday morning when markets opened.
January 9, 2025 at 12:01 PM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Some local councils in England will need to *quintuple* new housing delivery to meet government targets.

Analysis - plus postcode lookup for your council at www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Bar chart showing average number of homes delivered in English councils and the new targets they are expected to meet. For example, Kensington and Chelsea delivered around 240 new homes a year over the last three financial years. Their new target is more than five thousand homes a year.
January 9, 2025 at 11:53 AM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
This is fab.
December 22, 2024 at 9:31 AM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
luketryl.bsky.social
As featured on Rest is Entertainment our @moreincommonuk.bsky.social polling of how Brits favourite Christmas films breakdown by voting intention. Labour holds landslide leads with fans of Elf & the Grinch. Tories storm ahead with Love Actually and Reform are ahead by 5 points with fans of Scrooged.
December 10, 2024 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
bothness.bsky.social
What's your favourite #API for government #OpenData in 2024? And why?

(Asking for a friend... Examples from anywhere in the world welcome!)
API icon by adizas/clean png
December 10, 2024 at 10:07 AM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
scientificdiscovery.dev
Americans are now one-third less likely to die from cancer at the same ages as Americans in 1990
How has the risk of dying from cancer changed in the United States? To understand this, we can look at national cancer death rates in the United States. The gray line shows the crude rate, which is the rate of deaths from cancer per 100,000 people. It has risen between 1950 and 1990 and has fallen slightly since then. However, cancer death rates rise sharply with age, and the age of the US population has increased since 1950, so we would expect cancer death rates to rise for that reason alone. What if we adjust for the increased age of the US population? The red line, the age-standardized rate, shows this. It shows the cancer death rate if the age structure of the US population was held constant throughout. This shows a slight rise until 1990 and then a significant decline; rates have fallen by one-third. This means Americans are now one-third less likely to die from cancer at the same ages as Americans in 1990. This comes from several factors: better screening and earlier diagnosis, medical advances in cancer treatments, and public health efforts to reduce risk factors like smoking and exposure to carcinogens.
December 9, 2024 at 10:02 AM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
As well as the policy stuff, this is good on how to read “is X too high or too low” survey data.
December 7, 2024 at 11:06 AM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
Top baby names in E&W 2023:
Olivia (eighth year in a row, Ava replaced by Freya in top five)
Muhammad (this spelling up from second in 2022 - top five for boys unchanged)

More here: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...
Baby names in England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
Most popular first names for baby girls and boys in 2023 using birth registration data.
www.ons.gov.uk
December 5, 2024 at 9:50 AM
robertcuffe.bsky.social
2.3m victims of domestic abuse, 39k convictions.

Most of the fall-off is between incident and reporting and between reporting and referral to CPS (and of that, more than half of the fall-off involves victims not supporting action).

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Chart showing domestic abuse from incident to conviction. 2.3m victims: The Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates that 2.3m people were victims of domestic abuse in the year to March 2024. Just over two-thirds of these were women (1.6m). Despite gradual falls over the last decade in the estimated prevalence of domestic abuse, this figure hasn't changed significantly from the year ending March 2023. 0.85m crimes recorded: The police recorded about 1.4m domestic abuse-related incidents and crimes in the year ending March 2024 - 0.5m were categorised as incidents and 0.85m as crimes. Domestic abuse accounts for nearly one-in-six of all offences recorded by police. More than three-quarters of these recorded crimes run aground on what are called "evidential difficulties", most often the victim not supporting action. 73k referrals to CPS: The police referred nearly 73,000 cases to the CPS in the last financial year of whom just over 49,000 were charged. The number of referrals was slightly up on the year before (69k). 39k convictions: There was a slight fall in the conviction rate. Just under 39,000 of the cases completed last year resulted in conviction, very slightly down from just above 39k the year before - reaching the lowest level for at least ten years. (38,776 down from 39,198)
November 27, 2024 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
duncanrobertson.bsky.social
Hannah Fry joins the University of Cambridge
www.maths.cam.ac.uk/features/han...
Hannah Fry announced as Professor of the Public Understanding of Mathematics | Features: Faculty Insights
www.maths.cam.ac.uk
November 22, 2024 at 1:50 PM
Reposted by Robert Cuffe
ourworldindata.org
Fossil fuels are the biggest source of CO2 emissions in most countries, but there are a few exceptions
November 22, 2024 at 12:04 PM