Future approach to the regulation of ONS’s economic statistics

ONS’s plans for economic statistics and associated surveys cover a very large suite of statistics and include around 160 milestones which span from March 2026 to March 2029.

OSR considers that a multi-faceted approach is needed to regulate economic statistics during this period, consisting of:

• crucially, assuring and supporting progress against the ONS plans as a whole
• assuring compliance of individual sets of statistics and key improvements with the Code of Practice
• providing a systemic view of ONS’s recovery, including ONS’s effectiveness in moving resources to support economic statistics, taking account of other pressures (including the next census).

Assuring progress against ONS plans as a whole

In response to each of ONS’s quarterly reports, OSR will write to ONS, publicly setting out its assessment of progress. This assessment will draw on engagement with key stakeholders and on our regulatory work. OSR will publish a more comprehensive annual report, which will draw together our views in the round.

Assuring compliance with the code

Assuring compliance is OSR’s ‘business as usual’. OSR will continue to assess statistics against the Code of Practice and follow up on ONS’s response to the assessments we have already undertaken in our Spotlight on Quality programme.

For key changes, we also plan to assess ONS’s delivery of change against the Code of Practice. This would build on the approach we have taken to the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) and Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Consumer Price Index including Owner Occupied Housing (CPIH) accreditation.

Our assessments will be prioritised according to the milestones in the ONS plans.

Providing a systemic view of ONS’s recovery

The initial scope of our strategic review covered data sources for economic statistics, stakeholder needs and engagement, and related organisational factors. The interim report focused on data sources, and the Devereux review provided a detailed examination of organisational factors.

OSR does not consider it would be an efficient use of resources for it to duplicate the investigations into organisational issues carried out by Sir Robert. Instead, OSR plans to focus on assessing ONS progress against the requirements set in its interim report, and on the recommendations made in the Devereux review in respect of economic statistics.

To contribute to retaining a ‘systemic lens’ over ONS’s recovery, OSR also plans to supplement our work on assessing ONS’s progress with periodic thematic reviews. We propose to begin with a review of ONS’s engagement with stakeholders, as this remains the one element from the work originally planned as part of the systemic review which has not been fully addressed by either our interim report or the Devereux review.

We propose that this review will commence next year, once ONS has made progress on engagement with its stakeholders on its new plans. We will also develop a longer-running programme of thematic reviews. Topics could include areas such as quality assurance and progress with replacing legacy systems.