Exclusive: Matt Hancock Faces Second Warning Over Coronavirus Test Figures
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Britain’s statistics watchdog is expected to warn Matt Hancock that it still has concerns about government figures for daily Covid-19 tests, HuffPost UK can reveal.
Hancock is in a race against time to hit Boris Johnson’s target of 200,000 daily tests by Monday, as part of the wider goal to get a “world beating” test-and-trace system in place by June 1 to ease the country’s path out of lockdown.
But with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) not expected to publish statistics on capacity until Sunday, just hours before the deadline, critics fear the target could be achieved by new moves to “artificially” inflate the figures.
Sir David Norgrove, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, told Hancock on May 11 that he had concerns about the “trustworthiness” of the way the government was presenting and counting its numbers of tests for the virus.
In a little-noticed move, Hancock replied to the watchdog this week to define the 200,000 figure as “capacity” rather than actual number of tests conducted.
Hancock said that he was publishing “a clear definition of how our target of capacity to perform 200,000 tests a day by the end of May will be measured and reported”.
But it is understood that Sir David believes the minister has not fully addressed his concerns, not least on safeguards to avoid double-counting and the need to provide more detail on the nature and types of testing.
He and his colleagues at the watchdog are considering sending a new letter outlining their views next week.
It is rare for the UK Statistics Authority to write directly to cabinet ministers and the original letter was described as a “diplomatically-worded but strong public rebuke”.
Sir David, a former Treasury economist and private secretary to Margaret Thatcher, is widely respected across Whitehall.
Some experts have heavily criticised the...
