The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has lifted a label of ‘under reservation’ on its statistics for recorded crime.

The office has been categorising the statistics in this way since March 2018, due to concerns about the underlying quality of data from the PULSE system used by An Garda Síochána (AGS) to record crimes.

The lifting of the reservation follows the CSO’s fifth quality review of the data, which found “consistent evidence of high-quality data levels”.

The CSO said that AGS had introduced new control measures for data management and quality.

The office added, however, that it would continue to inform users of the quality of the data that it was using, and of any particular issues that might need to be noted as they arose.

Confidence

The CSO and AGS are to sign a new memorandum of understanding outlining the quality-management checking and reporting being done by the force.

Jim Dalton (statistician in the CSO’s crime and criminal-justice section) said: “Over the past number of years, An Garda Síochána has worked to advance the assurance levels which can be provided around PULSE data, with the CSO providing guidance on appropriate quality measures.

“Users can have confidence that the risks to data quality are known to AGS, and enhanced controls are now in place to help manage those risks.”