H. Quality assurance
H. To give users greater confidence in ONS’s quality assurance, ONS should set out its approach to validating migration estimates, particularly migration flows.
Actions taken and commitments made by ONS to meet the recommendation
In May 2023 ONS published a quality and methods information document alongside the latest estimates.
ONS also told users in its most recent methods publications that it consults with the Government Statistical Service Migration Steering Group and the Migration Statistics Expert Group and compares trends with other comparable data and statistics for quality assurance purposes.
In November 2023, ONS published Long-term international migration: quality assuring administrative data and Improving international migration statistics using administrative data which sets out why ONS is more confident in administrative data– based estimates than the IPS estimates in November 2023.
OSR’s evaluation of evidence
Whilst the transformation has been ongoing published quality information has been lacking so it is good that ONS has recently published quality assurance publications. We recognise that this is an ongoing transformation and expect ONS to keep this information up to date as methods and data sources develop to improve users’ understanding of the statistics and improve public confidence in ONS’s work.