Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on February 19, 2026
2 min readLast updated: April 3, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleBritain’s ONS will cut publications about 10% in 2026 to fix data-quality issues. It will scale back health surveys, end night-time economy analysis and pause quarterly emissions data, prioritising core outputs used by the Bank of England.
LONDON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Britain's statistics agency said on Thursday it would cut some of its publications under a plan to fix persistent quality problems with core data releases.
The Office for National Statistics said it would reduce the number of reports it produces by about 10% in 2026 to help it prioritise.
The agency said it would reduce its work on health surveys, end its work on the night-time economy and pause its quarterly greenhouse emissions data.
"Difficult decisions to reduce the number of our publications are essential to restoring the quality of our core statistics," ONS Permanent Secretary Darren Tierney said.
In 2023 the ONS said it found problems with low response rates to its Labour Force Survey. The LFS is used to calculate Britain's unemployment rate and other key measures of the jobs market. It is being overhauled.
The Bank of England typically uses the ONS' labour statistics as part of its decision-making process on interest rates. Governor Andrew Bailey has described the deterioration of the data quality as a "substantial" problem.
(Reporting by Suban AbdullaEditing by William Schomberg)
The ONS plans to reduce its publications by around 10% in 2026 to prioritise improving the quality of core UK statistics.
The agency will reduce work on health surveys, end its night-time economy analysis, and pause quarterly greenhouse gas emissions data.
ONS labour and economic data inform Bank of England interest rate decisions and investor analysis, so improving accuracy can affect policy and market expectations.
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