FOI Ref: FOI/2022/4542
You asked
Could you please provide me with the figures for the amount of working days lost due to industrial strike action in the UK public sector for the following years:
2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022, up until 1 September.
We said
Thank you for your request.
Prior to April 2020 the number of working days lost due to industrial strike action was published as part of the monthly Labour Market publication. Please see the following link to the relevant dataset published on our website: LABD01.
In April 2020, collection and publication of labour disputes data were temporarily suspended to protect and prioritise our Labour Market outputs in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
In June 2022, collection of the Labour Disputes Inquiry restarted. From 15 November 2022, we plan to publish labour disputes (including the number of working days lost due to industrial strike action) as part of the monthly UK labour market release.
More information can be found in our article Labour disputes, UK: July 2022 update and future work.
As such, the information held on this topic from June 2022 is 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.