FOI reference: FOI-2025-2540
You asked
I would like to request the following information:
Summary statistics of formal household financial assets from the 2020-2022 and 2022-2024 runs of the Wealth and Assets Survey. Particularly, the percentage of households with the following assets:
All current accounts
- Current accounts in credit
- Current accounts in overdraft
Savings accounts
ISAs
- Cash ISAs
- Stocks and shares ISAs
- Lifetime ISAs
- Innovative Finance ISAs
National Savings certificates and bonds
UK shares
Insurance products
Fixed term bonds
PEPs
Employee shares and share options
Unit/Investment trusts
Overseas shares
UK bonds/gilts
Overseas bonds/gilts
Other formal financial assets
Any formal financial asset including current accounts in credit
Cryptocurrencies
We said
Thank you for your Freedom of Information request. You can find the estimates you have requested for the period April 2020 to March 2022 from the Wealth and Assets Survey (Round 8) in Table 5.1 of our recently published Financial Wealth dataset. This is downloadable in xlsx format.
Data collected on the Wealth and Assets Survey covering the period April 2022 to March 2024 (Round 9) are currently undergoing post-collection data processing along with rigorous quality assurance - steps here are outlined within our Wealth and Assets Survey QMI. These estimates will be available once the post-collection processing and quality assurance are complete. Our current expectation is that this data will be released in 2026. When confirmed, we will announce release dates on our ONS release calendar.
As such, the information you have requested is considered exempt under Section 22(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future. As a central government department and producer of official statistics, we need to have the freedom to be able to determine our own publication timetables. This is to allow us to deal with the necessary preparation, administration and context of publications. It would be unreasonable to consider disclosure when to do so would undermine our functions.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. We recognise the desirability of information being freely available and this is considered by ONS when publication schedules are set in accordance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. The need for timely data must be balanced against the practicalities of applying statistical skill and judgement to produce the high quality, assured data needed to inform decision-making. If this balance is incorrectly applied, then we run the risk of decisions being based on inaccurate data which is arguably not in the public interest. This will have an impact on public trust in official statistics in a time when accuracy of official statistics is more important to the public than ever before.
The Wealth and Pensions team would be happy to discuss any further questions or analytical requests directly at wealthandassetssurvey@ons.gov.uk.