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Britain’s statistics agency has said it plans to replace its faulty jobs market data in November 2026, earlier than previous guidance of 2027, as the embattled authority seeks to stem criticism of its performance.
The Office for National Statistics said on Thursday that improving figures on the labour market remained its “highest priority” and that work was already under way to launch the new “transformed” labour force survey later this year.
The agency said it aimed to transition to the new survey as the main source of employment statistics in November 2026. But it cautioned that the move would be “data led” and could yet be delayed until 2027, depending on the outcome of a “readiness assessment” in July 2026.
The ONS has faced severe criticism over a series of errors in economic indicators, alongside delays to data publication, raising concerns about funding and leadership at the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics.
A sharp decline in response rates to the agency’s labour force survey — a critical input into interest rate decisions — has left it difficult for the Bank of England, policymakers and researchers to know if employment is rising or falling between quarters.
A review by the Office for Statistics Regulation, the regulatory arm of the UK Statistics Authority, this week found that issues around the quality of figures had been driven by “insufficient investment” in data collection.
It called on the ONS to take “decisive action to restore confidence”, less than a week after the agency reported a real-terms cut to its budget for 2025-26.
Sir Ian Diamond, the UK’s national statistician, this month said financial pressures had forced the ONS to scale back plans to track productivity, wellbeing and crime in order to prioritise outputs “that have the greatest impact”, such as labour market data.
The agency on Thursday set out continuing work to improve response rates to the LFS by boosting its interviewer workforce, increasing the sample size and trialling a £20 incentive voucher, double the usual reward.
Response rates recovered to 19.6 per cent at the end of last year, up from 12.7 per cent in the second half of 2023, when the ONS was forced to pull publication at short notice. But they are still far below pre-pandemic levels.
Responding to the OSR review, Diamond said the ONS would publish an update on work to improve survey quality, as well as its priorities for economic statistics and strategy for data sourcing once a separate government-commissioned review into leadership and culture had ended.
Ministers commissioned former senior mandarin Sir Robert Devereux last week amid growing concerns that systemic problems have hampered the agency’s efforts to fix faulty data.
An internal review published last year warned that improving in-house ONS culture was “the most critical and pressing need”, highlighting staff concerns about a “pervasive and recurring over-optimism” and “perceived preference for delivery over quality” among senior leaders.
