The UK Government was last night called on to hand full independent control of crime statistics to the Office of National Statistics after a �damning indictment of its cavalier use� of official data.

The UK Government was last night called on to hand full independent control of crime statistics to the Office of National Statistics after a "damning indictment of its cavalier use" of official data.

The call from the Liberal Democrats came after the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) reignited the row over the Home Office's premature release of knife-crime figures for England.

The analysis details 10 ways in which the press release, trumpeting the Home Office's knife-crime crackdown south of the border, failed to comply with the code of practice for official statistics.

At the time, Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UKSA, criticised the release of the figures as "premature, irregular, and selective", prompting Home Secretary Jacqui Smith to make a Commons apology but only for being "too quick off the mark" with the data.

Chris Huhne for the LibDems claimed UK Government ministers had been "caught red-handed and red-faced".

Calling for control of the crime statistics to be handed over to the UKSA, he added: "Every such instance of wanton misrepresentation undermines public confidence in the fight against crime."

UK Government figures which fail to comply with the code of practice, published in full yesterday, will in future be refused a stamp of approval from the UKSA.

Its report showed the Scottish Government is planning within the next year to seek national statistics designation for data from the Scottish health, housing conditions and crime and victimisation surveys.