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One of the highest officials of the government was responsible for reaching the bottom of the data problems produced by the Office for National Statistics, while the concern increases in Westminster concerning the reliability of the figures used to direct the British economy.
Pat McFadden, Minister of the Office Cabinet, asked his best official cat to look at the performance of the ons in the midst of fears that Chancellor Rachel Reeves is left blind as she establishes her plans for the economy.
“Pat thinks that this is an obvious problem,” said a colleague from the Minister. “He raised it with the permanent secretary [Little] And said it is crucial that we have data on which we can count. »»
Little and his colleagues were invited to provide options for possible government action after a series of revelations on errors in official economic indicators, according to people knowing his briefing. Among the ideas on the table, there is an independent examination, although no decision has been made.
Last week, Dame Meg Hillier, president of the influential selective committee of the Treasury, wrote to Sir Ian Diamond, the national statistician, to underline “the disturbing errors and delays” in certain sets of statistics.
An ally of Reeves said: “There is the frustration that we make of economic decisions when the data is false. It is a bit of a problem, to say it slightly.”
The ONS have been faced with problems with some of the data most sensitive to the market it produces, which makes British decision -makers more difficult to lead the economy. Concern focused on breaking the key survey on the workforce, which underlies the employment data, but the ONS found problems in other parts of its production.
The data cruncher suspended the publication of two price indices of producers who help calculate GDP and were criticized for “blurred economic reasoning” by the Institute for Tax Studies on the way in which he has reassessed the wealth of pensions.
The Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee this month highlighted the need for “high-quality and reliable official data throughout the range of economic and labor market”, after Governor Andrew Bailey deplored the quality of the job numbers.
The Statistics Regulation Office, a branch of the UK Statistics Authority, which oversees the country’s statistical system, plans to publish a provisional report in April on a systemic review of economic statistics it launched last year.
An official close to McFadden said he was concerned about the problems of the ons. “It is essential that we have reliable data and that the ons are vital,” said the source.
In his letter, Hillier told the head of the statistics that she was “concerned about the impact of unreliable labor market statistics and if there were problems with other economic data”.
She added: “The latest disturbing errors and delays in commercial data and data index of producers will expand concerns about the reliability and accuracy of the economic statistics available for decision -makers and other users.”
Hillier has requested an update on the nature and causes of errors identified in the prices of producers’ prices, as well as the response of the ONS to IF criticism of the wealth figures.
She also asked for more information on the problems of commercial data after the March 13 ONS reported an error in figures dating from 2023.
On Friday, the ONS published updates to its commercial data after examining this problem. Among the problems were errors in the data provided by HM returned & customs relating to imports of goods and an error in the system processing services, according to the ONS.
However, the revisions To negotiate numbers for 2023 and 2024 did not affect wider GDP data.
The Office Cabinet refused to comment. The ONS have told the FT that it “remains focused on the production of the highest quality statistics for the public good and is committed to the continuous improvement of our methods and approaches”.
