Yahoo News Welsh Government accused of ‘lack of transparency’ over 20mph speed limit claims
Britain’s leading statistician has accused the Welsh Government of a “lack of transparency” over its 20mph speed limit claims.
Leaflets put out by the Welsh Labour government claimed the new default limit would only add one minute to journeys. The three-page document, funded by the tax-payer, said that the new slower speed limit would help save lives and that “most journeys” would only take “around one minute longer”.
The head of the Office for Statistics Regulation Ed Humpherson, however, wrote to Stephanie Howarth, Wales’ chief statistician, criticising the “lack of transparency” of the information.
Mr Humpherson said in an email last week that “it would be challenging for a reader to unpick this detailed document and understand the data and calculations used to support the claim”.
Conservative shadow transport minister for Wales, Natasha Asghar MS, said the criticism over transparency made it “even more clear” that the speed limit rollout had been an “absolute shambles”.
Mr Humpherson also said: “In the course of engaging with your team on this matter, they helpfully shared a technical note on the journey time calculations within the Regulatory Impact Assessment.
“This more clearly sets how the claim was derived in a way that would allow scrutiny from readers, but this technical note was not publicly available for citizens to access.”
He added: “In short, I do not consider that the presentation of this analysis in the leaflet fully aligns with our expectations for Intelligent Transparency.”
‘Putting tourists off coming to Wales’
The Welsh Government later published the technical explanation of their one-minute figure, saying that the types of trips made on affected roads are “typically short and involve stop-start travel conditions”, making the actual impact of the slower speed limit “marginal”.
Mr Humpherson also told Ms Howarth that “improvements could have been made to aid transparency and better support users”. He also recommended that Welsh Government analysts “should continue to work with and support” communications and policy staff to improve the presentation of data and statistics.
The Welsh Government and Transport for Wales should “continue to review the evidence on journey times” when communicating with citizens about the policy”.
According to the Office for National Statistics, average free flow speeds on 30mph and 20mph roads are 31mph and 26mph respectively, resulting in an average delay of 46 seconds per mile.
The Welsh government’s own advisers warned that the 20mph limits only reduced speeds by 3mph in a study released before the restrictions were rolled out across the country.
Shadow tourism minister Tom Giffard on Monday called the policy “tone-deaf”. He added the government was making “a colossal mistake” as its 20mph speed limits were “putting tourists off visiting Wales”.
‘A bit slower, but a whole lot better’
The Welsh government, however, has insisted that most people are “getting used to” the speed limit changes.
When those changes were introduced earlier this year, more than 460,000 signatures were added to a petition against the new limit which was delivered to the Senedd.
Elsewhere in the leaflet, the Welsh Government said that “most people in Wales (63 per cent) support a lower speed limit where they live,” and added: “20mph. A bit slower, but a whole lot better”.
Gareth Parry, a councillor for Gwynedd whose brother was killed in 1994 by a car travelling at 30mph, called the policy move a “fantastic change”.
A spokesperson for the Welsh Government said: “We welcome the letter from the Office for Statistics Regulation.
“The figure referred to is supported by a technical document that explains how population, car journeys and distances travelled data were used within the calculation.
“We have taken OSR’s advice and have made this additional information available online.”
