The UK’s Official Statistics Agency, the information of which is at the heart of decisions affecting millions of people, is being examined following criticism of its data.
The government has asked a former senior official to conduct an independent investigation into the effectiveness of the National Statistics Office (ONS).
The Bank of England previously criticized the Statistics Agency for the reliability of its labor market data, which the bank examines to decide to raise or reduce interest rates.
The ONS accepted that its economic data has problems and said it was impatiently waiting to engage with the exam.
He added that later this week, he will publish a “new strategic business plan” which will indicate “how key statistics and services will have priority during the coming year”.
The Office and United Kingdom Cabinet Statistics Authority said that they had asked Sir Robert Devereux to carry out the exam “will assess the efficiency of the ons in the delivery of its basic statistics”.
He will also examine the “culture, structure and organizational leadership of the agency and will examine the effectiveness of its relations with the Treasury and the Office Cabinet.
The reliability of the ONS labor investigation has been a problem for some time. The survey collects information from households in areas such as employment, unemployment and economic inactivity.
The chief economist of the Bank of England, Huw Pill wrote to the ONS last May to raise concerns concerning the “continuous problems” with the survey such as the low response rates that were aggravated during the cocvid.
Consequently, he said that the bank was unable to “gain a lot of weight” on ONS data and had to use other official figures to help decide on interest rates.
The ONS is committed to presenting a new series of more precise work data by next year.
However, in December, Sir Ian Diamond, national statistician and head of the ons, warned that this cannot happen before 2027.
Sir Robert Chote, President of the United Kingdom Statistics Authority, who had the monitoring of the ONS, said: “This examination is an opportunity to help guarantee that the ONS can provide the best of what is a difficult external environment.”
