Statistics tell only part of the story

NOT too long ago, when the extent of Aberdeen City Council’s financial problems started to emerge, there was a general nodding of heads among all political parties that they should work together to solve the problem, rather than seek to score cheap points. If they did work together, it didn’t last long.

Hot on the heels of Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg claiming that previous Labour Party incompetence had left a gaping hole in the city’s finances, the SNP has today produced figures purporting to show that all the other parties had contributed to the perilous state of affairs by exceeding the budget on social work and education by more than £200million in the last 10 years. Shocking figures, it would seem, which, at a stroke, distanced the SNP alone from culpability. Except that, like all other statistics used selectively, they tell only part of the story.

What these figures don’t show, presumably because the question was not asked, is to what extent the books were balanced by making cuts in other areas of spending deemed less important. Without that crucial additional information, the figures are not worth the paper on which they were printed.