Ed Humpherson Director General Office for Statistics Regulation
By email
26 August 2025
Office for National Statistics (ONS) Response to Office for Statistics regulation’s (OSR’s) Systemic Review of Economic Statistics
Dear Ed,
Thank you for your letter of 7 August 2025, and your warm welcome. I look forward to working with you.
I welcome your judgement that the Economic Statistics Plan, alongside the Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan for economics statistics (henceforth the ‘Statistics and Survey plans’), the forthcoming revised Strategic Business Plan and Data Sources Strategy, meets the Office for Statistics Regulation’s (OSR) immediate requirements.
Good progress has already been made in a number of areas. Last week, the Blue book introduced important methodological improvements to the National Accounts, including to increase coverage of Research and Development statistics. Method changes made last week to ONS house price statistics will reduce the size of future revisions. The sample size for the Labour Force Survey is now back broadly in line with the pre-pandemic level. And we have a first wave of 90,000 respondents now in the field for the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS), which will enable our readiness assessment in July 2026 with our aim to transition in November 2026.
Notwithstanding this progress, we have a long way to go. The issues highlighted by the Devereux Review including the combination of historic underfunding, lack of prioritisation, reductions in technical training and departure of experienced staff, will take considerable work to remedy. As you noted in your own review of economic statistics, stakeholders have pressed for a clear, resourced vision and strategy for economic statistics and expressed widespread concerns about the quality of surveys. In addition, there are challenges from a great deal of legacy across data collection, processing, and analysis systems, which in many places are not sufficiently flexible to facilitate change or the adoption of modern processes.
The ONS is moving quickly to prioritise and make sure all functions are aligned behind those priorities. The ONS Executive Committee (ExCo) agreed this month to redirect £1.5mn of resource to the Economic Social and Environmental Statistics Group (ESEG) this year in support of the Economic Statistics Plan, in addition to the £2.4mn already allocated in support of the TLFS. This will allow the headcount of the group to increase by 100 over the remainder of 2025/6. This follows a £26.4m allocation to improving social surveys that was also agreed in August, providing committed resources for the TLFS, the Statistical Business Register and Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) work. I expect delivering the Statistics and Survey plans will require more resource, particularly in future years. ExCo will have further prioritisation discussions in September, where we will need to look at what activity can be stopped or scaled back. Prioritising and mobilising adequate resourcing, and aligning all of the ONS behind those priorities, is ExCo’s primary focus, as it is, in my judgement, the largest immediate risk to delivery progress.
We are also ensuring critical foundations for sustainable delivery are in place. A sustained improvement in the quality of statistics rests on people and technology and I am delighted with the immediate energy and focus Darren Tierney, the new permanent secretary at the ONS, is bringing to a refreshed and strengthened strategy in these areas, which will be critical dependencies of the statistics and surveys plans.
We are putting in place clear governance structures to drive implementation of the Statistics and Survey plans. Consistent with the recommendations in the Devereux review, we are adopting a ‘continuous improvement model’ with change projects embedded alongside the statistical production teams. We are also establishing a central function to set the strategic direction for statistics, the surveys that they are dependent on, and to provide integrated planning and reporting and assure delivery. The programme of work will follow Teal book principles. We are setting up a senior steering group, with representatives from HM Treasury, the Cabinet Office, the Bank of England and the Office for Budget responsibility, to take stock on progress and align on priorities.
We are setting up an integrated approach to reporting. Reports will go first to the senior steering group, then to the UK Statistics Authority Board and then for publication. We will work to ensure publication provides a basis for engagement and feedback on the plans with Parliamentary Committees and with broader users of our statistics. We will set the frequency of reporting to a quarterly basis and envisage the first report being published before the Christmas break. We will keep the frequency of reporting under review to ensure it does not distract from delivery. We are expanding our current quality review programme and formulating a data sourcing strategy for statistics and will update on these with our next report. We will also bring more transparency on the statistical outputs where we have a quality review underway, so users can understand what is driving that and the period over which any concerns will be resolved.
I am grateful for the offer of support from the OSR on assuring the plan. I look forward to working together to improve the quality of, and restore trust in, the statistics that underpin so many critical decisions.
Yours sincerely,
James Benford
Deputy National Statistician and Director General, Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics Group | Office for National Statistics