You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am writing to request you make publicly available in electronic format the May 2020 "UK House Price Index - arithmetic mean for Great Britain" which would be associated with the May 2020 HPI release.
We said
Thank you for your request.
We recently published the arithmetic mean for Great Britain, for the period January 2017 to March 2020. We are in the process of updating the UK House Price Index to bring the index up to date following its suspension, owing to the impact of Covid-19. Following the interim publication of July 2020 data on 7th October, we will bring the arithmetic mean series up to date with data from March to July 2020.
As there is an intention to publish the requested information in the future, Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 applies, whereby information is exempt from release if there is a view to publish the information in the future.
This exemption is subject to a public interest test. Whilst we recognise the desirability of information being freely available, we also acknowledge that public authorities must have the freedom to be able to determine their own publication timetables. This allows them to deal with the necessary preparation, administration, and context of publication. Furthermore, public interest is best served through the public having confidence that the information published by ONS is accurate and final. Release on an ad-hoc basis would not achieve this aim and will cause unnecessary confusion if they were to be misrepresented. In this case, exempting the information clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure.