Ed Humpherson, Director General for Office for Statistics Regulation
Office for Statistics Regulation
Fry Building
1st Floor, 2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
10 March 2025
Dear Ed,
Alternative Release Time for Economic Statistics
You asked us to review our current Alternative Release Time of 0700 for releasing market-sensitive economic statistics (the default release time for official statistics being 0930). I am pleased to attach our assessment following this review. This concludes that we should retain the 0700 release time for now but reconsider with a broader range of options once improvements to the ONS website and data access have been embedded.
As requested, we engaged relevant government bodies, financial market stakeholders and the media on this subject in autumn 2024. We heard a range of views at that time from stakeholders. These included concerns about the impact of the 0700 release time on the smooth running of the SONIA market.
From an ONS perspective, the release time of 0700 increases the visibility and timely explanation of our statistics via the media and thereby helps meet our statutory responsibility to deliver statistics for the public good. Furthermore, there are currently practical risks to reverting to a 0930 release time in terms of our responsibilities under the Code of Practice for Statistics to ensure the orderly release of statistics. It is imperative that all users, in particular market participants, can access the information simultaneously. To ensure we can safely meet the large demand for data and volume of visits to our website at the point of release of our economic statistics, we have work underway on a new website and data access via an API.
Given the differing stakeholder views on this issue, we commit to revisit this position once we have launched our new website and data API and it has demonstrated the required robustness for a year to mitigate any risk of unequal access to our statistics. When we review this again, we will engage widely and consider all options not just 0700 and 0930.
Your sincerely,
Mike Keoghan
Deputy National Statistician and Director General for Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics