The Department of Tourism has announced that the tourism statistics will now only be released quarterly as part of the Minister’s luncheon. For the past eight months (wrapped around an election and amidst claims that the tourism numbers were being artificially boosted with business arrivals), they had been handed out monthly. The schedule and content of the numbers have bounced around significantly for years (both the PLP and the UBP played this game).
It goes without saying that this situation is ripe for abuse.
I reiterate my earlier calls for Bermuda Government statistics to be entirely neutral and free from both departmental and political influence. Numbers that have been massaged are not useful management tools, nor are they a fair scale for accountability.
- Statistics must be gathered and analyzed by an entirely independent Stats team.
- The Stats team releases its results to the public and to Government at the same time (reducing the urge to pick out the most flattering data and craft a message for public consumption).
- The Stats team independently chooses how to present the data (reducing the spin surrounding statistics - by the time the public have had time to digest the numbers behind the hype, the news has moved on).
- The Stats team chooses the release dates for statistics (reversing the trend of choosing good days or fancy lunches for burying bad news).
- An independent watchdog should annually comment on the quality of the statistics and make binding recommendations for improvement.
All of the above are best practices already used in other countries.
