Dear Ed,

Thank you for your letter on 7 December 2023.

We welcome OSR’s conclusions from the latest review of ONS International Migration Statistics Transformation that significant improvements have been made to these vital statistics.

ONS is committed to ensuring international migration statistics reach the highest quality standards as we continue to transform to an administrative data-based system. Throughout this journey we have aimed to engage with users, to support confident use and interpretation of these statistics. This aim was at the heart of our efforts to deliver the suite of publications on 23 November, and I am pleased to read you have acknowledged this.

The next year is hugely important for the ongoing transformation of population and migration statistics. It is our highest priority that users are kept fully informed on the future system, so that they can rely on an anticipated cadence of outputs.

In November, we published important progress on measuring and communicating uncertainty, and will build on the feedback from this prior to future statistical publications. We agree that more is required to capture the underlying statistical uncertainty to enhance users’ confidence. ONS will build on the work to date and set out plans fully during January 2024 which will fully address OSR’s residual recommendations.

We would like to thank OSR for a constructive ongoing review period and your team’s engagement to ensure our international migration statistics are compliant with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

I am copying this letter to Jen Woolford, Director of Population Statistics and Jay Lindop, Deputy Director of the Centre for International Migration.

 

Best regards,

Emma Rourke

Deputy National Statistician, Population, Health and Methods
Office for National Statistics

 

Related Links:

Ed Humpherson to Emma Rourke: ONS Migration Statistics Transformation – 7 December 2023