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The UK’s statistics agency is scaling back work in critical areas such as crime and health to focus on repairing its core economic indicators, according to plans set out on Wednesday.
The Office for National Statistics said it planned to reduce its “outputs” by 10 per cent in 2026 to free staff to work on improving the quality of its most critical statistics and surveys.
The ONS is engaged in a huge turnaround effort after deep-seated problems within the agency led to a series of problems with key economic indicators policymakers rely on. An independent review blamed the problems in part on its over-reach into new areas of work at the expense of “less exciting but nonetheless crucial” statistics.
Health is one area likely to suffer big cutbacks, despite the leading role the ONS played during the Covid-19 pandemic when it developed new surveys to monitor the spread of infection.
James Benford, ONS director-general for economic, social and environmental statistics, said this reflected “a strategic call that right now, the ONS does not need to be in that space”, with other government bodies able to fill the gap. The agency will continue publishing core figures for births, deaths and life expectancy.
The ONS is also putting on hold work to improve its crime statistics despite long-standing concern over the quality of alternative data collected by police, which is often volatile because of changes and differences in the way forces record offences.
The agency said it would still produce headline figures based on its Crime Survey for England and Wales, but would review broader work to ensure that the funding it receives from the Home Office matched the cost of delivery.
Benford said that funding aside, the ONS needed more time to handle the sensitivities of developing new statistics on sexual violence, making it “a good time to take stock”.
A third area where the ONS has run into funding constraints is in its production of local statistics that policymakers around the country rely on to form a detailed picture of economic and social conditions in their area in between the 10-yearly censuses.
It is considering pausing its annual population survey — a key source of this local data — until its new online labour force survey is introduced, which is at present expected either in 2026 or 2027. The APS is underpinned by the current old-style LFS, which has been beset by problems.
Benford, who was appointed in June, said the aim of the cutbacks was to “create space” for staff to focus on quality over quantity, although details will be decided after consultation with users of the statistics.
Many officials acknowledge the ONS has run into difficulties partly because its resources are spread too thinly across an expanding array of activities.
But Sir Ian Diamond — who stepped down as national statistician, a role that includes heading the ONS, earlier this year after heavy criticism of his leadership — warned MPs at a recent parliamentary committee hearing that the drive to improve economic data should not crowd out crucial work on health and crime.
“On many occasions the Treasury said, ‘All we want is economic statistics,’” he told MPs. “I would argue that a national statistics institute should be doing social as well as economic statistics. The two are, in my opinion, equally important.”
