The government has launched an independent investigation into the UK’s beleaguered statistics watchdog to ascertain how its official data and surveys have become so unreliable.
The remit of the probe – commissioned by the Cabinet Office and UK Statistics Authority (UKSA) – will span the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) culture, leadership and structure, and will be led by ex-senior mandarin Sir Robert Devereux.
Devereux was permanent secretary at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Transport before he retired in 2018.
He will be responsible for addressing the root of the well-documented issues at the ONS that date back to the pandemic.
The statistics agency has been castigated by the Chancellor, Governor of the Bank of England, and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) in recent months.
The body’s unreliable labour survey has been the most high-profile failure.
Falling response rates made it so unreliable that it became difficult to tell whether UK unemployment was rising or falling.
During an evidence session in November, Huw Pill, the Bank of England’s chief economist, branded the unreliable labour data a “formidable” challenge, and attributed it to the fact “people don’t answer their phones in the way they used to”.
In a Treasury committee hearing shortly before the investigation was announced, the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) David Miles weighed into the problems beset by the ONS’s Labour Force Survey, telling MPs: “People should have much less confidence in the employment statistics than they used to.”
Other issues have also emerged, including the data the ONS compiles on the producer price index—a metric used to help calculate gross domestic product (GDP).
In its recent wage growth assessment, the body highlighted that one large employer had supplied its earnings data late, meaning it may need to revise its overall forecast.
The Cabinet Office said in a statement that the Devereux-led review will kick off this week and is expected to end in the summer.
During this time, it will seek to root out these failings.
Cat Little, the civil service’s chief operating officer, who has been charged with devising a policy response to the review, said accurate statistics were “integral to decision making and the delivery of public services.”
And Sir Robert Chote, the UKSA chair overseeing the ONS, branded the probe an “opportunity to help ensure that the ONS can deliver its best in a challenging external environment”.
“The Authority Board looks forward to hearing his conclusions, drawing on the views of external stakeholders and ONS colleagues about what works well and what could be improved,” he added.
ONS data is relied upon by some of the UK’s most significant economic institutions, and is used by officials in Threadneedle Street and the Treasury to set fiscal and monetary policy.
In his Mansion House speech last year, the Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey bemoaned what he called the “travails” of the Labour Force Survey, telling attendees: “I do struggle to explain, when my fellow governors ask me, why the British are particularly bad at this.”
A spokesperson for the ONS: “We look forward to engaging with Sir Robert Devereux on his review.
Later this week we will publish a new strategic business plan for the ONS, setting out how key statistics and services will be prioritised over the year ahead.”