What is the Importance of statistics in government?

Answer 1

Stats are important tools to help us find ways to improve what we do; they tell us why some things we do work better than others by showing us when they work, how they work, and what elements in them work best. The possibilities are almost endless as we move conditions around for testing against other stats.

However, it must be noted that stats are only as good as the person compiling them. So a statistician could prove or disprove virtually any truth or any lie simply by conditioning the test to suit the ends expected or needed. This is doubly true for government stats where outcomes can mean billions of dollars in grant money, thousands of lives in war, tons of food in emergency aid and everything else you can imagine.

So user corrupted results mean it is impossible to tell the importance or lack of importance of stats in government.