Just when we thought getting data from the Department for Work and Pensions was becoming a much simpler business, new difficulties have been encountered obtaining their statistics..

We have already looked at how their piece of ad hoc research on the number of people who have never had a job has been used in the media.

But it is not only the misreporting by some quarters of the press that has raised our curiosity.

The research as it is published only gives figures for the number of people who have never worked dating back to the final quarter of 2008.

This has led to presentation of the data such as that in the Daily Telegraph which reported: “The number is now the highest since at least the fourth quarter in 2008, when the department started to collect the figures.”

Yet the Office for National Statistics confirmed to us that this information, as recorded by the Labour Force Survey does date back to 1992.

Naturally we - and by the sound of the response we got from DWP, several other people - were curious about the rest of a data set covering nearly 20 years.

Sadly DWP are unable to provide the full statistics despite having access to the dataset.

We were told that the Department did not run a full break down of the time series data, when producing this ad hoc report.

This situation appears to suggest the Department is once again quoting selectively from the information on the number of people who have never had jobs.

It was on this very topic which Full Fact complained to the UK Statistics Authority earlier this year. The response we received which found “serious deficiencies” in the DWP procedure for releasing statistics seems relevant in this case as well.

Sir Michael Scholar, the Authority's Chairman, told us: “I see no objection to selective quotation from datasets of this kind, provided that they are presented fairly and accurately, and provided that the public has equal access to the database concerned, so that alternative selections may be made..”

By only publishing the last eight quarters of data or figures apparently going back to 1992, DWP is in our opinion failing to provide the kind of access to the data supported by the the UK Statistics Authority.

When Full Fact has enquired in the past about obtaining custom data from the Labour Force Survey, we have been told the cost would be £135 per request. We do not think this can be what Sir Michael meant by the public having "equal access to the database concerned." We will therefore be writing to the Department to ask them to reconsider the decision not to make the data available for the full timeframe.