Null deviance ($D_0=2\varphi [{\ell }_{\mathrm{saturated}}-{\ell }_{\mathrm{intercept}}]$)

The null deviance is the unscaled deviance of the intercept-only mean model relative to the saturated model at a common dispersion parameter $\varphi$, retaining any known generalized linear model offset. It supplies a baseline against which predictor terms improve the fit. Its difference from a fitted model's residual deviance, divided by $\varphi$, is the statistic for a likelihood-ratio test of those added terms, with nuisance parameters handled consistently in both fits. In Poisson and binomial families, $\varphi =1$.