Dear Jen and Alex,
Review of statistics from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS)
Today, we have published a report of our review of the latest statistics from the Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) – including the bulletin titled Household total wealth in Great Britain – for compliance against key elements of the Code of Practice for Statistics. We previously set out an intention to undertake further regulatory work on response issues impacting household surveys used across the statistics landscape. This review was undertaken as part of this work.
We found that the WAS is a unique data source and informs key analyses such as assessing pensions adequacy, determining the level of the state pension, conducting academic research about household wealth, and developing monetary policy and fiscal policy. Many users we spoke to mentioned appreciation for the survey and noted the unique role of the WAS, as there are no other free, publicly available datasets to get a comprehensive view of household wealth.
Whilst ONS took some action to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic, the overall sentiment conveyed by users was that the statistics based on the WAS no longer meet their needs. The reasons they gave included concerns over the quality of some estimates and that ONS has not been able to sufficiently mitigate the pandemic-induced quality issues. Users were also concerned about resourcing, engagement and the comparability of data over time. Additionally, you have indicated a further deterioration of quality (and therefore ability to meet user needs) in round 9, meaning smaller sample sizes are a longer-term issue.
These factors mean that, on balance, we found that these statistics no longer comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics. Therefore, the accredited official statistics status should be removed from the following outputs and all metadata relating to the Wealth and Assets Survey:
- Household total wealth in Great Britain
- Saving for Retirement in Great Britain
- Household Debt in Great Britain
Alongside the completion of our review, you have written to me requesting suspension of the accreditation of ONS’s core outputs using the WAS from round 8 onwards. I support your request to suspend accreditation for these statistics, which is in line with our review report. This suspension will hold for round 8 and all future releases until ONS indicates to us that the five requirements set out in our review have been met and statistics from the WAS are ready to be considered for re-assessment against the Code.
I note from your letter your wider work to develop a plan for the collection and processing required to bring wealth statistics back to the standard needed for users, which you intend to publish in the Autumn. ONS should also report regularly on progress meeting the five requirements set out in our report, starting from September 2025. My team will be in touch periodically to follow up on ONS’s progress.
Yours sincerely
Ed Humpherson
Director General for OSR
Related Links:
Statistics from the Wealth and Assets Survey review
Alex Lambert and Jen Woolford to Ed Humpherson – Household Wealth Assets – 13 June 2025