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2005-06-05 - 3:44 p.m. Today (Thursday 2 June 2005) the Express published its "league table" of councillors’ attendances at council meetings. It’s an exercise in the misuse of statistics. For each councillor, the number of possible meetings to attend is given. This differs for each councillor as each committee has its own frequency of meetings. Some meet monthly, some every three weeks for example. Some decide to hold extra meetings because of the amount of work and these extra meetings are counted. Next the number of meetings attended is given but councillors are not given the opportunity to explain why they miss any meetings. Sometimes, though rarely, this could be because two meetings a councillor should attend are being held at the same time. Usually, councillors who work have to arrange time off with their employers and cannot attend all meetings because of work commitments. Well so far not too bad but now we get to the naughty bit. By multiplying the ratio of meetings attended to the number of possible meetings by 100% a percentage is obtained. It does not take too much intelligence to realise that, for example, this gives different percentages for two councillors who each miss one meeting but one could attend five while the other twenty. One scores 80% and the other 95%, yet both have missed only one meeting. So, the percentages are not fair but the naughtiness continues. The councillors are rated according to the percentages obtained. While this league table gives a rough indication of attendances it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Furthermore, it fails to take into account other bodies, such the Fire Authority, that some councillors also have to attend.
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