The UK’s Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has said the country’s national statistics agency, also known as the Office for National Statistics (ONS), must urgently take take a number of steps “to maintain the confidence of its users, ensure transparency on its priorities and improve the quality of its data sources.”

The warning was part of a interim report which was published on Monday, 7 April. The report is part of a more detailed Systemic Review being carried out by the OSR into the economic statistics produced by the ONS,

The final findings of the review are expected to be published later this year, but the interim report “presents the evidence gathered in the initial stages of the review, which has focused mainly on data sources,” the OSR has said.

According to the OSR, the judgements in the interim report were reached on the basis of evidence it gathered from four main sources, including:

• OSR’s own assessments of economic statistics, consisting of 26 assessments. Each assessment is an in-depth analysis of how far the statistics in question comply with the Code of Practice, and provides a detailed and comprehensive picture of the statistics that it assesses.
• Stakeholder views, based on semi-structured interviews with 25 key stakeholders, and supplemented by evidence from the Statistics Assembly, the Statistics Assembly report, and feedback provided by individual stakeholders in the course of OSR’s business, such as the Royal Statistical Society and the Better Statistics campaign.
• ONS staff views, based on focus groups and interviews with around 40 ONS staff, predominantly based in economic statistics and data sources.
• OSR’s analysis of financial and staffing information provided to us by the ONS finance team.

The OSR’s interim findings come after concerns were raised about the quality of the economic data published by the ONS, with issues around “data series, including GDP, producer prices and business profits – on top of the high-profile failure of labour market data,” according to the FT.

Key findings

Despite praising the ONS for making “significant progress on a range of outputs in its portfolio of economic statistics, and for having strong support from many stakeholders, the interim report has highlighted “common issues with data quality, administrative data and user engagement.”

Some of the issues and concerns highlighted in the report include, but are not limited to:

• Stakeholders would like to have “a better understanding of ONS’s strategy and a clearer idea of what ONS regards as its core economic statistics.”
• There are major concerns around the findings of the Labour Force Survey. Despite the fact that ONS has made some improvements in this area, stakeholders are still concerned about the quality of the data for the survey.
• “Making sufficient resources available for its high-priority economic statistics and supporting their data sources has been a consistent challenge.”

The interim report also makes three overall conclusions. First, it has asked the ONS to acknowledge the declining quality of data and do something about it.

Second, the agency has been unable to make good use of large amounts of administrative data from across government departments, partly due to practical and cultural challenges within those departments.

Third and last, the OSR believes that “greater strategic clarity of purpose and transparency on prioritisation would help reassure external stakeholders.”

The OSR has also highlighted three main expectations of the ONS, including (1) restoring confidence, (2) ensuring strategic transparency and (3) focussing on the quality of data inputs.

Requirements

The OSR has said the immediate and fundamental requirement for the ONS is to “takes decisive action to restore confidence” among stakeholders in the quality of its economic statistics.

To achieve this, the OSR has asked the ONS to prepare, within four weeks, “a fully resourced plan to recover its social survey operation and reduce risk in its business survey operation. This plan should set out the risks that continued data quality challenges pose to economic statistics,” the interim report has demanded.

Also, the OSR has said the ONS, over the next three months, “should implement a more transparent and engaged approach to the way it prioritises across its output of economic statistics.”

The interim report also demands that the ONS develops and publishes a clear vision and strategy, which should then be regularly updated, “for the data sources used to compile its economic statistics.”

Finally, the OSR has asked the ONS to take a more strategic and systemic approach to maintain the quality of its surveys and the data collected through those surveys.

This can be achieved by having regular quality reviews, which can focus on “issues such as the maintenance of samples, validation rules and keeping survey questions updated.”

The OSR has said it will now see how the ONS responses to the findings of the interim report, and will publish the final findings of the review in the autumn this year.

ONS response

The ONS has faced criticism in recent weeks, both from the Bank of England and policymakers, for a number of key errors in its economic statistics and delays in publishing key data.

A falling response rate to its labor force survey, a lack of data, or data with errors, has made it difficult for the BoE to decide interest rates, as it cannot determine whether employment rates have increased or decreased.

In response, the agency announced on Thursday, 10 April, that it will be replacing the current faulty employment rates data in 2026, the Financial Times has reported.

In a press release, the ONS said it had “successfully tested an experimental, shortened ‘Transformed Labour Force Survey’ (TLFS) questionnaire and undertaken quantitative and qualitative research and methodological development.”

“The new, improved TLFS design has been judged as being the most effective in responding to the core needs for future labour market statistics,” the agency has said.