Findings

Communication and engagement with users

2.1 ONS’s engagement with users of labour market statistics has improved. ONS has developed ways to work more closely with expert users and to share data and findings emerging from the TLFS. ONS introduced a monthly Technical Engagement Group in April 2024 to provide a forum to discuss upcoming developments and improvements in an open and transparent manner. In June 2024, ONS established the Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Labour Market Statistics, chaired by Professor Jonathan Portes. In addition, ONS has consulted with a range of academic experts from Southampton University, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Wollongong and the Australian National University. Users who are part of data sharing work are able to provide enhanced insight into the TLFS dataset. These engagement exercises should support the TLFS’s development to improve the quality of the outputs from the survey.

2.2 One of the uses of the LFS outputs is to obtain information about respondent characteristics such as education, religion and health status, alongside their employment status. In the transformation programme, ONS has been concentrating on developing the employment variables first. In January 2025, ONS set up a new user group to feed into the development of the non-labour market variables from the LFS. We are glad to see this development because some users we spoke to felt that they had no way to express their views and were not confident that the TLFS would meet their needs.

2.3 ONS has continued to improve the depth of its reporting on the plans for and changes to the LFS, the TLFS and the APS. ONS produces accessible blogs on its National Statistical page and publishes articles to update more-expert users. ONS has been facilitating user workshops and open seminars where the developments and improvements to the three surveys have been openly explained and discussed with users. ONS has a landing page about employment and labour market statistics, covering people in work. Users we spoke to were happy with the increased transparency around the TLFS.

2.4 We welcome ONS’s progress and consider that it should continue to widen its user engagement and publish a stakeholder engagement plan. ONS should also publish relevant methodological and quality papers to help users understand the work that is underway and be reassured about how it is developing.

Readiness criteria

2.5 In ONS’s July 2024 update on progress and plans, it set out the criteria it will use to determine its readiness for transitioning to the online-only survey. This framework included components of statistical and data quality, user confidence and readiness and operational readiness.

2.6 ONS has yet to publish details of the readiness criteria. It is not clear what indicators will be used to assess each of these components. ONS told us that it expects to publish detailed information about the readiness criteria in April 2025. (See Requirement 3, page 13).

2.7 Response rate challenges have also been a feature of other household survey collections in the UK and internationally. The social research community is keen to understand why this is happening and what can be done to improve response rates. Wider research into improving the performance of household surveys is underway, co-ordinated by the Economic and Social Research Council. We are glad that ONS is feeding into this research.

Programme management

2.8 Users we spoke to expressed some frustration with the delays in moving to the TLFS. In its update published in December 2024, ONS indicated that the LFS estimates would be less volatile from May 2025, and that there are different options for transitioning to the TLFS, some of which could take until 2027 to finalise. ONS has had to push back milestones and publication dates several times. These delays, alongside the continuing issues with the quality of the LFS data, mean that users might not have the data they expect from the LFS.

2.9 That said, the transition should not happen prematurely or in a way that risks further deterioration in the confidence of these important statistics. To maintain user confidence in the programme, ONS should publish more detail about the plans to transition to the TLFS by April 2025, including a consideration of whether routine data from the TLFS could be published prior to the transition.

2.10 ONS has published an interim action plan from its ‘lessons learnt’ exercise. ONS should set out its plans for regular reporting on the progress of this plan by April 2025.

Coherence of UK labour market statistics

2.11 Given the current challenges with labour market statistics, LFS users are looking at a wider range of indicators to triangulate their estimates and draw conclusions on the performance of the labour market. It is important that they have sufficient information, support and guidance on the performance, strengths and limitations of the various data sources to support this work. In 2023, we published assessment report number 377 about statistics on earnings and employment from pay as you earn (PAYE) real-time information, used in the labour market statistics publication. At that time, we asked ONS to explain how the PAYE statistics relate to other equivalent labour market statistics in a way that helps the full range of users understand how the different data sources relate to each output and the respective strengths of different figures to answer key questions about the UK’s labour market. ONS informed us that it plans to publish a series of articles by June 2025 which explore the coherence between estimates from the LFS, estimates from business surveys and estimates from administrative data, which will support this user need. We will review this information against compliance with the Code and report on it in our follow up to assessment 377. We also consider it as part of future progress updates related to the TLFS and LFS.

2.12 Alongside ONS’s transformation of the LFS for England, Scotland and Wales, the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) has been transforming the NI Labour Force Survey. Maintaining UK coherence is important, and we would encourage the ONS and NISRA to continue their engagement and collaborative work in transforming their respective surveys to digital data capture.

Next steps

2.13 OSR will continue to monitor the development of the TLFS and LFS against our updated recommendations and the two new recommendations.

New recommendations from this report

• To maintain user confidence in the programme, ONS should publish more detail about the plans to transition to the TLFS by April 2025, including a consideration of whether routine data from the TLFS could be published prior to the transition.
• ONS should set out its plans for regular reporting on the progress of this plan by April 2025.

Actions remaining to meet recommendations set out in the July 2023 progress report on the TLFS

1. To support trust in the statistics, and their acceptability amongst users, ONS should continue to widen its engagement and publish updated stakeholder engagement plans by April 2025.
2. ONS should publish adequate information on:
   • finalised variables and questions (including harmonisation and frequency and coverage of TLFS variables) for the TLFS.
   • its analysis of data discontinuities explaining any impact on time series.
3. ONS should continue to support user needs for the Annual Population Survey data and publish timescales about the future availability of datasets by May 2025.
4. ONS should:
   • explain how it is triangulating the TLFS data with other data sources, such as the census, to sense-check the reliability and accuracy as part of the quality assurance process.
   • ONS should continue to provide users with regular updates on progress and as part of its spring 2025 update include its high-level plan for the next phase of work.
5. ONS should publish its analysis of mode effects on the TLFS.
6. When publishing the methodological information, ONS should ensure that all relevant technical papers are accessible and well signposted.
7. ONS should publish information about the final TLFS weighting methodology.

Actions remaining to address the requirements set out in the July 2024 progress report on the LFS

1. ONS should continue to examine the accuracy of estimates from the LFS and publish details about the causes of uncertainty and bias to assist appropriate use of the data alongside its bulletin in May 2025.
2. ONS should set out the detailed principles and readiness criteria it will consider in making further LFS improvements and deciding to transition to the TLFS by April 2025. This should include a greater level of detail around how statistical and data quality will be measured, what is good enough and how different perspectives will be managed.
3. ONS should publish details about the impact of LFS household survey interviewer resource allocations on other household survey instruments and their outputs by July 2025.

2.14 ONS should report on progress against these recommendations by July 2025.