We welcome the Office for Statistics Regulation’s review of economic statistics —especially their emphasis on the need for urgency in restoring confidence in the UK’s economic statistics.
We support the review’s call for a plan, to be published within four weeks, on how the Labour Force Survey will be reinvigorated, tackling the issue of a significant decline in response rates. And we also endorse the deadline of three months for ONS to publish clear priorities for future economic statistics, including a focus on ensuring the right data sources are being used.
The RSS has welcomed recent moves towards greater transparency at the ONS and has been working closely with the UK statistical system to better recognise and respond to the needs of users of statistics. Following the UK Statistics Assembly in January we have also been planning a series of roundtables with the UK Statistics Authority, including relevant topic experts from ONS, focused on some of the technical issues at the heart of the challenges faced by producers of statistics.
The Cabinet Office and UK Statistics Authority also recently announced a review of ONS – we are engaging with them to clarify the terms of reference and to seek to input. We will also be responding to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry into the performance of the UK Statistics Authority, which will also be looking at some of ONS’ key economic outputs.
RSS CEO Dr Sarah Cumbers said: “The regulator is right to acknowledge the full scale of the current issues with the UK’s economic statistics and the need for ONS to be transparent about its recovery plan. To this end, we welcome ONS’s plans to publish strategies for its surveys and economic statistics.
“As the demand for data has grown, ONS has dramatically increased its range of outputs but given resourcing constraints the current situation demonstrates a clear need for prioritisation. Our view is that users need to play a role in this. Sustained user engagement alongside the publication of the full statistical programme, and the resource impact of different outputs, is essential to enable users in wider society to be informed about – and inform – the trade-offs being made, and understand how needs have been taken into account in these decisions.”