Truths, Damn Truths, and Government Statistics

In this podcast series, Professor Thomas J Scotto, Dean of Learning and Teaching in the College of Social Sciences at the University of Glasgow, looks at government statistics, challenges faced by civil servants who produce official statistics in an era of political polarisation and misinformation, and what can affect the trust the public has in statistics. The series directly accompanies the “Statistics in Government” class taught by Professor Scotto at the University of Glasgow but can be a useful accompaniment to external courses in Statistics and Society. The podcasts also will be of interest to those who have questions about how government statistics are developed. The focus is on National and Official Statistics in the United Kingdom, but several episodes make cross-national comparisons and cover more general topics. More information on the fully online MSc in Data Analytics for Government (MDATAGOV) offered by the University of Glasgow can be found at https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/mathematicsstatistics/postgraduate/mdatagov/ If you’d like to contact us, please feel free to e-mail thomas.scotto@glasgow.ac.uk. Support for this podcast was provided by The Datalab Scotland, helping Scotland maximise value from data and to lead the world to a data powered future. For more information, go to https://www.thedatalab.com/