In a letter to National Statistician Sir Ian Diamond, RSS President Dr Andrew Garrett has underlined the importance the Society places on the development of the Household Costs Indices (HCIs) as essential tools to understanding the experience of inflation in households across the UK.
In the letter, Dr Garrett welcomed the commitment of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to publish HCIs quarterly from September, and noted that this has already been influential on the development of similar HCIs in the US. However, he also expressed concern that the ONS has frozen further development of HCIs, and noted further steps that could be taken without incurring many additional costs.
Read the RSS letter in full
In a response, Sir Ian noted the continued commitment of the ONS to better measuring inflation and consumer prices, and highlighted resource constraints as a barrier to swifter development around HCIs.
Read the response from Sir Ian Diamond
The RSS will continue to promote the importance of the HCIs as the best measure of inflation as experienced by different households, and looks forward to engaging with ONS further on its plans for quarterly publication.