Alex Lambert and Liz McKeown to Rob Kent-Smith Family Spending statistics

Dear Rob,

Compliance review of Family Spending statistics from the Living Costs and Food survey – Progress Update

In February, the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) undertook a compliance review of Family Spending in the UK statistics concluding that they continue to be published as accredited official statistics, while also setting out three recommendations that ONS should implement to further strengthen how our statistics meet user need.

As we noted at the time we welcomed the report, its conclusions and the associated three recommendations. We would now like to update you on our progress towards each of them:

Review recommendation 1: Variable continuity

The first recommendation set out the need to provide more-accessible explanations of data changes to users and to engage them on variable changes. While much of the information required is captured in existing materials and variable guides for UKDS/SRS metadata, we have recognised where this may not be easily located by users and have now improved the way in which we direct stakeholders to this information. This included by providing more explicit signposting within the recently published LCF Technical Report financial year ending (FYE) 2025.

Engagement with users is also underway to better understand what information about variables collected from the Living Costs and Food Survey (LCF) is most helpful for users. This was initiated as part of the March Expenditure Steering Group, with targeted follow-up discussions to be held with users who contributed related feedback to the compliance review. Insights from this engagement will help us review and further improve signposting to the information required, and determine whether additional clarification or information is needed.

Looking ahead, we will map and plan communications for anticipated variable changes arising from forthcoming LCF developments (such as alignment with COICOP18).

Review Recommendation 2: Timeliness

The second recommendation focused on the need to speed up data processing to allow for more timely publication. As recognised in the review, increased resources have been allocated to both the LCF survey and analytical teams, which alongside the introduction of a digital interviewer-facing diary in Autumn 2025, has already enabled faster and more efficient processing of LCF data.

Since this, we have upgraded our major LCF processing system to a Reproducible Analytical Pipeline (RAP), which has further streamlined data handling. We have also further expanded and restructured the LCF delivery team to support yet more resilient and efficient processing. Improvements in collaboration and knowledge sharing between teams have also enhanced analytical efficiency and helped identify key trends sooner in the process. As a result, Family Spending in the UK, FYE 2025 was published on 11 June 2026, three months earlier than the FYE 2024 release, though we recognise this is still outside the one-year target.

Longer-term developments, such as automated receipt-reading tools, are expected to further improve the timeliness of data processing and publication. We continue to review all elements of the end-to-end survey delivery and publication process to identify where additional efficiencies and timeliness improvements can be made.

With ONS business planning for 2026/2027 now complete, we have published an overview of plans for the development of Household Finance statistics as part of our latest ONS Survey and Economic Statistics Improvement Plan quarterly update. We anticipate sharing further details with OSR in August.

Review Recommendation 3: Quality reporting

The third recommendation related to the need to update the quality and methodology information related to the survey. We welcome the recommendation and are working towards providing an update on the quality information in autumn 2026. The analytical work to extend the quality reporting in line with this recommendation is progressing well and we are working towards providing this information in a refreshed format. We are pleased to have implemented a boost to the issued LCF sample in April 2026 (from 20,000 to over 30,000 issued cases) and will include an assessment of its impact in this autumn update.

We hope that this provides a helpful summary of our response to date and remain committed to keeping you updated as we continue to progress these recommendations.

Yours sincerely,

Alex Lambert, Director of Social Surveys

Liz McKeown, Director of Economic Statistics Production and Analysis