Devereux Report findings and recommendations

Findings

The Devereux report, published in June 2025, made major recommendations on ONS organisational matters that have important implications for its production of economic statistics.

Sir Robert Devereux judged that most of the problems with ONS’s core economic statistics were the consequence of ONS’s own performance.

Three inter-related underlying cultural issues were highlighted by Sir Robert, as paraphrased below:

1. A commendable interest in both new approaches to statistics (including the use of administrative data) and ensuring the relevance of ONS activity to wider political debate has had the (unintended) effect of de-prioritising the less exciting, but nonetheless crucial, task of delivering core economic statistics of sufficient quality to guide decision making. The opportunity cost has been both the constraint on organisational bandwidth, and the restricted funding for core economic production teams.

2. This interest in the ‘new’ might have been better managed if ONS had a stronger system of planning and budgeting. There was little evidence of re-prioritisation at the organisational level, with, for example, substantive reductions in lower priority work. Instead, the four leaders of the principal teams within ONS were invited to make their own decisions on how best to balance their final budgets, even though each core economic statistic requires collaboration across all four teams.

3. A widely reported reluctance of senior leaders to hear and act on difficult news. The organisation had performed exceptionally during the pandemic when an overwhelming emergency understandably de-prioritised many other activities. It was not realistic to expect the exceptional level of delivery to continue without the effects of the de-prioritisation becoming increasingly apparent. Senior leaders should have acknowledged and responded to the warnings of staff concerned about the quality of population and economic statistics.

The failures of economic statistics which have occurred were not best thought of as isolated issues, but rather as the almost inevitable consequence of the choices made (and not made) at the top of ONS over several years. This included choices about what to prioritise in seeking funds in the 2021 Spending Review.

Sir Robert’s conclusions on these issues are fully consistent with the findings set out in OSR’s interim report.

Devereux report recommendations

Sir Robert’s recommendations are paraphrased below:

Recommendation 1

ONS needs a focused and consistent effort to improve core statistics: the statistical system is complex, and many elements need action, which must be carefully sequenced; past actions appear to be too piecemeal, driven by individual failures.

Recommendation 2

To support this new direction and strengthen delivery confidence yet further, there is a need to change the way ONS is led. Since the passing of the relevant legislation in 2007, the National Statistician has also been the Permanent Secretary for ONS. Sir Robert’s view was these roles require quite different sets of skills and that, while they have been found in the same individual before, the combination is rare. Sir Robert judged that the balance of advantage now lay in separating the roles of Permanent Secretary and National Statistician, at least for a temporary period, in order to appoint as ONS Permanent Secretary someone with a track record of leading an operational business, including turning round such an organisation.

The key factor underpinning this recommendation was a judgement that most of the problems that have arisen with core statistics have resulted from inadequacies in the way ONS has made decisions, planned and budgeted, and managed risks.

Sir Robert also highlighted other management issues requiring urgent attention. These included the resolution of a dispute over working from home, the management of, and responsibilities for, the deployment of technology, the effectiveness and consistency of performance management, the development and retention of deep technical knowledge, and challenges in recruiting and retaining skilled staff more generally.

Overall, Sir Robert judged ONS lacked a consistent and compelling narrative about how the organisation sees and addresses its challenges and responds to external critiques. And such a narrative was a necessary cornerstone for effective engagement of staff across ONS, and to motivate and support each person’s contribution.

Recommendation 3

The ‘turn round’ period should be used by various parties to reflect on the appropriate governance of ONS and of the wider statistical system for the long term, and if they conclude that legislation needs to change, to do so well before further appointments are needed. (In the Cabinet Office’s response to the review, it committed publicly to reviewing the governance arrangements and potentially changing these via primary legislation if necessary.)