By Andy Bruce
MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) -Britain’s Office for National Statistics plans to release less data on health, crime and regional development next year to free up resources to repair the quality of the most important economic figures, it said on Wednesday.
Errors across a range of its headline economic data releases have dogged the ONS over the past two years, culminating in a highly critical government review of its operations and sweeping management changes.
As part of its recovery plan, the agency said it planned to reduce the number of statistics it publishes by 10% in 2026 so it could deliver “streamlined, clearer” information to its users.
“Our top priority is restoring the quality of our core statistics,” said Darren Tierney, permanent secretary at the ONS.
“Today’s plans take us one step further, narrowing the focus of our portfolio and reducing the number of publications so we can devote resources to our improvement work, putting quality over quantity and working closely with users to rebuild trust.”
The announcement included a reduction in the number of health statistics published by the ONS, which expanded greatly during the COVID-19 pandemic and which the agency now wants other parts of government to take over.
It said it would continue producing key population data like births, deaths and life expectancy, but would talk with parts of government about continuing other work.
Crime statistics outside of the ONS’ flagship Crime Survey for England and Wales are also earmarked for review, as the ONS said it did not receive enough funding to produce them.
The agency said it would also reconsider its suite of subnational statistics, which offers detail about the economy at local levels, as well as the Annual Population Survey which sheds light on local trends in work, housing, ethnicity, and religion.
The APS data is drawn from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) which has seen a plunge in response rates since the COVID-19 pandemic, casting doubts over its results.
The ONS has faced criticism from the Bank of England for failing to publish reliable data on the labour market, with Governor Andrew Bailey saying it was a “substantial” problem.
Statisticians are working to raise the LFS sample size while they trial a modernised, “transformed” version of the survey that they aim to launch formally late next year.
Consumer price inflation, producer prices, trade, retail and public finances data have also been subject to errors this year by the ONS or government bodies that supply data to it.
(Reporting by Andy Bruce, editing by David Milliken)
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