Struggling UK stats office to split leadership, focus on core data

By William Schomberg and Sachin Ravikumar

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's statistics office will split its leadership and invest more money as part of a push to fix problems with its economic data that have hampered the Bank of England and exasperated private economists.

After a string of shortcomings with core figures from the Office for National Statistics, a review published on Thursday called for the temporary separation of the role of national statistician from that of ONS permanent secretary.

The ONS also said it would invest 10 million pounds ($13.7 million) into core economic and population statistics over the next two years as part of plans to "restore quality and confidence" in its data, followed by additional extra funding.

"We have sometimes tried to be all things to all people, spreading our resources too thin, limiting our investment in our core statistics," said Grant Fitzner, the agency's acting director general for economic statistics.

"The ONS regrets these quality issues and understand the significant challenges they have presented for our users."

Problems with the ONS' employment data - stemming from a slump in responses to its surveys - have caused headaches at the BoE, which needs to know how much inflation pressure is lingering in the jobs market as it sets interest rates.

Governor Andrew Bailey has described the shortcomings of the data as a "substantial" problem for policymakers.

Concerns emerged in 2023 when the ONS said it had detected problems with the low response rates to its Labour Force Survey (LFS). An improved version of that survey might be released only in 2026 or possibly 2027.

Fitzner said the turnaround plan would focus on using the best available source data, including an expansion of the face-to-face surveys that underpin the LFS, and on significant investment to upgrade systems used for processing raw data.

Teams would be taken off social and public policy work to focus on the ONS's core economic statistics and a streamlining of management and support roles would help provide the 10 million pounds investment, along with 150 new skilled roles.

Fitzner said in a blog it was inevitable that the ONS would discover further "issues with our current data and methods. We will of course be transparent about any revisions we make."

The head of the U.S. Federal Reserve called on the U.S. government last week not to cut back too aggressively on its efforts to collect data on the economy.

($1 = 0.7283 pounds)

(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and William SchombergEditing by William James and Frances Kerry)