91Èȱ¬

"As far as we are concerned, the issue (of the ) is dead and buried."

An unfortunate phrase, perhaps, from a source in the home secretary's office, but the whole affair (which I have written about here, here, here and here) has not gone away as far as I am concerned.

Indeed, intriguing new detail exposes some questionable activity at the heart of government.

Jacqui Smith doesn't want another row with the head of the , , I am told. But she does want to make it clear that "the stat that went out before Christmas was not incorrect".

But how can she be so sure?

The figure she is talking about appeared in a controversial "" [pdf link] and claimed a 27% fall in numbers admitted to hospital with stab wounds in nine high crime areas the 91Èȱ¬ Office had targeted.

NHS officials said the statistic, published on 11 December last year, "had not been through the regular process of checking and quality assurance."

Sir Michael went further in a , describing how statisticians had "tried unsuccessfully to prevent their premature, irregular and selective release."

"I hope you will agree that the publication of prematurely released and unchecked statistics is corrosive of public trust in official statistics, and incompatible with the high standards which we are all seeking to establish", he continued.

The however, don't think they've done anything particularly wrong.

"We didn't go to Downing Street and say we were going to use the figure without being sure," an official close to the home secretary tells me.

"It might not have gone through all the hurdles Michael Scholar might have wanted. Michael saying it is not checked does not mean it is not true."

Well, how does that square with an e-mail of which I now have details?

It was sent by a senior NHS statistician to the Department of Health and forwarded to No 10's policy unit at precisely 13:56 GMT on 10 December (the day before the release) by the expert collating the hospital admissions data.

In it she explained that the figures must not be published because they were "provisional data".

"They are potentially inaccurate and may give the wrong impression," she states.

The reason, I understand, is that hospitals only submit data once a patient has been discharged.

So releasing the figures early meant they wouldn't include all those stab victims still on a ward and might paint a rosier picture than the official statistical release (due to be published next month).

Two hours after the warning from the statistician, a reply came back from a civil servant at the Department of Health:

"I have passed on your concerns to all concerned," it reads. "I have been informed that No 10 are adamant about the need to publish these statistics.

"As a result, I am informed that they are likely to publish the data irrespective of the concerns raised."

What makes No 10's position problematic is that the NHS Information Centre only agreed to put together the bespoke figures on the strict understanding that they would not be published.

There is an official and long-standing code which states that ministers may ask statisticians for pre-published raw data, but only for internal "management purposes".

My understanding is that officials knew the basis on which the stab wound numbers were being collected. Someone, it appears, went back on their word.

I am also now in possession of statistics prepared for the "fact sheet" which were sent to the 91Èȱ¬ Office but not used.

You can download the full document by clicking here [excel file].

These show that stabbings were falling in the high knife-crime areas before the government launched its action plan - down 11%.

Good news and likely to bolster public confidence one would imagine.

But the home secretary's staff chose not to include it in their release.

Instead, they focused on later and more unreliable data to claim that the apparent fall in stab wound cases coincided with their "Tackling Knives Action Programme".

The whole point of the release was to claim cause and effect - government action works. The earlier statistics undermine that assertion.

Jacqui Smith argues her staff's motivation in putting out the stats was to increase public confidence.

But there will be some who conclude that the omission of the previous statistics shows this to be so much humbug.

The bigger picture is becoming clear. There was no knife crime epidemic. Official (verified and checked) figures published on Wednesday showed that while the politicians were opining about soaring numbers of knife attacks,

English A&E departments were seeing a fall in the number of people brought in with stab wounds.

The says:

"Assault by sharp objects (including knives) resulted in 5,239 admissions in 2007-08", their statement reveals, "an 8.4% drop from 2006-07 (5,720)."

So, 481 fewer people were admitted with stab wounds in 07-08 and the average age of the victim was unchanged at 29.

The number of very young people wounded (0-14) has remained flat: 95 in 06-07 and 93 in 07-08. The suggestion that the age of victims was falling is also contradicted by the data.

I called the home secretary's office and asked for an answer to the question: "Why didn't you point out in your fact sheet that 'assault by sharp object' admissions were already falling before the government's action plan?"

I have informed Downing Street of this article and asked them for their response.

In both cases, I'll let you know what they say.

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