Dear Mike
The Annual Population Survey
Due to quality issues with the Labour Force Survey (LFS) that have led to its outputs having their accredited official statistics (aos) status suspended, we are also concerned about the quality, and therefore aos status, of statistics based on the Annual Population Survey (APS), which depends heavily on the LFS. The devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales make extensive use of APS outputs, and therefore need a good understanding of their quality. We recognise that the availability of new population data, when able to be used in the weighting of APS outputs, offers the opportunity to improve the quality of APS outputs and look forward to your further work with that data. In the meantime, we expect the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to publish its view on the quality of its APS-derived statistics, and to engage with the devolved nations to enable them to determine their view on the quality. ONS should publish its view on the quality of APS derived statistics by early September.
We will continue to keep the (accredited) status of the various LFS and APS statistics under review.
We have also published today an update on the progress made by ONS against the requirements set out in our short review of reintroduced LFS-derived labour market statistics. The report sets out our evaluation of the actions that ONS has taken, and a statement outlining the remaining actions that are necessary for each unmet and partially met requirement.
We appreciate the engagement from your teams and look forward to receiving updates on this work. I am copying this letter to Alastair McAlpine, the Chief Statistician of Scotland, Stephanie Howarth, the Chief Statistician of Wales and Rachel Skentelbery, Deputy Head of Profession for Statistics at ONS.
Yours sincerely
Assessment Programme Lead