The Department for Education has made potentially misleading claims that the Government is spending record amounts on school funding and the UK was the “third highest spender on education in the world”.
But this figure includes money spent by parents on private school fees and by students on university tuition fees.
The claim has faced criticism from headteachers who told the BBC it is shocking that the Department for Education would include billions spent on university tuition fees to make this claim.
Now the head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir David Norgrove, has written to the Department to raise “serious concerns about the Department for Education’s presentation and use of statistics”.
This is the fifth time in the last twelve months that the Statistics Authority has written to the department critiquing how they use statistics, according to Full Fact.