Progress against 2025 recommendations

This section provides detail about ONS’s progress. It is framed around the twelve recommendations from our 2025 update report.

• Actions taken by ONS: Since we released our update report, ONS has published a series of updates on its progress and plans in April, July and November 2025 and April 2026 detailing the design, timelines and readiness criteria for the TLFS. The updates discuss achievements and set out some of the design and method complexities that are still to be overcome, for example, ensuring the accuracy of self-reported industry and occupational classifications. The April 2026 update discusses in detail the considerations about data publication, and notes that ONS will publish a comprehensive plan setting out the timetable for releasing data and supporting materials, including documentation on survey design and methods, crossover survey results and accompanying datasets.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Met. The recommendation aims to maintain user confidence through transparency and early data sharing. ONS has been transparent about the issues in the balance regarding sharing TLFS data in the public interest.

• Actions taken by ONS: ONS set out plans from the lessons learnt review in its April 2025 update on progress. The July 2025 update on progress notes the strategies ONS published in response to the recommendations for improvement set out in OSR’s Systemic Review of ONS Economic Statistics and the Devereux Review.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Met. ONS has reported on the lessons learnt and actions for improvement in its TLFS updates on progress and plans. ONS also regularly reports progress with its economic statistics programme through its Economic Statistics Plan and its Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan

• Actions taken by ONS: At the start of the transition programme, ONS prioritised the development of labour market variables with users. ONS has since widened its engagement over 2025, using technical groups, advisory panels and workshops. ONS has commenced a Household, Socioeconomic and Local (HSL) technical group to focus on the development of non-labour market variables using the TLFS Plus. ONS also invites users to contact the teams in its quarterly updates on progress.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Much work is in progress, but gaps remain. In its quarterly updates, ONS discusses how users participate in shaping the transition programme and how their views are considered, but has not yet published a plan outlining broader user engagement and communication as it nears the transition.
• Further action required: To ensure that the whole breadth of LFS and APS users can prepare for the change, ONS should publish a plan outlining broader user engagement and communication as it nears the transition.

• Actions taken by ONS: ONS has developed a suite of guidance for users, including a variable mapper document and some technical design details for the TLFS. ONS has progressed with making changes to the TLFS design, followed by developing the estimation methods. ONS told us it will communicate the methodological details once they have been quality assured and agreed. As noted in its July 2025 update on progress, ONS also launched the LFS/TLFS Cross-over Survey in July 2025 to formally assess discontinuities, with further data collection in autumn 2025, and has yet to report its findings. The Cross-over Survey is a piece of research to provide comparisons between results of the LFS and the TLFS Core.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Work is in progress, but detailed information is not yet available due to the change in the survey design being the priority. ONS has shared some methodological details, and progress is evident, but details are pending about the harmonisation of variables, the frequency and coverage of TLFS variables and an analysis of data discontinuities. This information is critical to enable users to understand comparability between the LFS and the TLFS Core.
• Further action required: To ensure that the public can have confidence in using the statistics to make decisions and take actions, ONS should:

• • Release a comprehensive variable list for the TLFS Core and Plus surveys, which should include an explanation of how the variables harmonise with LFS variables, and the frequency and coverage of each variable.
  • Publish an impact analysis on data discontinuities, explaining how TLFS Core estimates compare to the LFS estimates, the expected effects on time series and guidance for interpretation.
  • Make these documents easily accessible and signpost them from the TLFS landing page.

• Actions taken by ONS: ONS has been providing regular updates on progress and plans, including developments with the APS. ONS has involved APS users in forums and workshops that discuss the development of the TLFS Plus survey. In February 2026, ONS published a letter explaining its plans for the APS, communicating funding changes and expressing plans to address user needs using the TLFS Plus. In its April 2026 update on progress, ONS indicated that it would be publishing an article about the quality of APS data in 2026, and plans to publish timescales about the future availability of APS datasets following the July readiness assessment.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Much work is in progress, but gaps remain. ONS is engaging with APS users to ensure their needs will be met by the TLFS survey. Some stakeholders feel well informed, but others have reported ongoing gaps in forward plans, being less confident that their needs will be met in future and that they would appreciate more bilateral engagement around the development of the TLFS Plus.
• Further action required: To support APS users, ONS should continue to engage more fully with them to understand critical user needs, the gaps in users’ knowledge and inform its future planning.

• Actions taken by ONS: In April 2025, ONS announced plans to compare pilot TLFS data with administrative data to understand potential employment-related non-response in the LFS.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Much work is in progress, but gaps remain. ONS updates users about its progress and plans at workshops, in quarterly articles and by involving them in various formal groups. Analyses are still ongoing, and the results of the research noted above have yet to be published.
• Further action required: To inform its quality assurance approach and promote public confidence in the data, ONS should publish its analyses on employment-related non-response and the LFS/TLFS Cross-over Survey, once they have concluded.

• Actions taken by ONS: In April 2025, ONS published the findings from the TLFS technical design review. It is evaluating the results of the LFS/TLFS Cross-over Survey.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Much work is in progress, but gaps remain. Transparency about the TLFS programme is improving, but analyses are still underway. These will be essential for understanding survey comparability and bias. ONS has published the findings from the review of the TLFS’s technical design, but results from the TLFS/LFS Cross-over Survey are not yet available. These will be helpful to understand how the survey mode influences responses to the TLFS Core.
• Further action required: To understand mode effects and inform the appropriate use of these statistics, ONS should share findings from the Cross-over Survey comparing LFS and TLFS Core responses, once the analysis has concluded.

• Actions taken by ONS: The technical design article has been signposted from the TLFS updates and LFS bulletin. ONS has created a new landing page for the transformation to bring links all into one place. ONS is developing its website and reviewing the labour market outputs to improve accessibility.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Much work is in progress, but gaps remain. ONS has improved signposting on its website, including through a new landing page. Accessibility is improving, but ONS should ensure all future articles are linked and can be easily found by users.
• Further action required: To ensure that users can easily access the information needed to enable them to appropriately use these statistics, ONS should ensure clear navigation between the TLFS landing page and the labour market bulletins.

• Actions taken by ONS: ONS has published some information about the weighting approach it is planning to take.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Much work is in progress, but information is not yet available due to the change in the survey design being prioritised. In its November 2025 update on progress, ONS published some information about the approach it is planning to take to deal with missing data, involving imputation and weighting, but has not yet indicated a date when the full weighting methodology might be available.
• Further action required: To ensure that the public can have confidence in using the TLFS statistics to make decisions and take actions, ONS should clarify when it expects to finalise and publish its approach to TLFS weighting.

• Actions taken by ONS: ONS has published quality reports and includes an analysis of current LFS bias in its labour market overview bulletins. In June 2025 and February 2026, ONS published a dataset of the LFS sampling variability, illustrating the level of uncertainty around key survey estimates.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Met. ONS has published evidence of LFS quality monitoring.

• Actions taken by ONS: ONS’s April 2025 update on progress mentions that it is refining a set of quality criteria which will form part of the TLFS transition readiness assessments. In its April 2026 update on progress, ONS noted that it has engaged with its expert users to develop and ratify the criteria and conditions for transitioning to the TLFS. In this update, ONS provided detailed measures of success, based around statistical and data quality, operational readiness and user confidence and readiness.
• OSR’s evaluation of evidence: Partially met. Much work is in progress, but gaps remain. Although ONS has published the detailed measures of success, and how it is continuing to manage user views through the readiness assessments, it has not provided specifics on what level of quality is good enough – for example, in terms of precision or achieved sample size.
• Further action required: To support trust in the statistics, and their acceptability amongst users, ONS should publish information about what level of quality is expected for each success measure before the transition, once they are finalised.

• Actions taken by ONS: ONS has published its Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan and an update on progress. On 27 June 2025, ONS published its plans for surveys. Section 6, Annex 1 to the Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan for Economic Statistics includes detail about the various household and business surveys that are used to compile economic statistics, and the improvements that will be made to each. The plan and annex allow users to judge the sequence of investment and the quality targets that each survey is trying to achieve.
• OSR evaluation of evidence: Met. ONS reported on progress with the Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan in December 2025 and has committed to reporting on progress quarterly.