National Statistical

Public Sector Finance estimates are fed by data sources outside the ONS and when one is miscalculated, it affects the overall picture. Here, James Benford talks through the correction published today following HM Revenue & Customs’ identified error, and the steps being taken to improve the sources that feed these important statistics. 

This morning, we have published a correction to the Public Sector Finance statistics. This reflects an understatement of the Value Added Tax receipts data supplied by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).   

The error reflected an omission by HMRC of some payment streams from the data used to estimate VAT receipts. It is difficult for the ONS to set up a mechanism to independently check these external inputs.  

I would like to thank HMRC for bringing the data error to our attention; this timely and transparent communication was vital for identifying the issue and correcting the record quickly. We have published this correction at the earliest possible opportunity. The revised data will be fully incorporated into the next public sector finance release, due on 21 October 2025, along with further regular data updates, including the recent publication on local government by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The impact of the correction is to reduce government borrowing by around £1bn in FYE March 2025 and impacts monthly borrowing in the current financial year by between £200m and £500m per month. This is not the first time there have been errors with the external data sources feeding public sector finances.  

I have discussed this error with senior counterparts at HMRC, HM Treasury and the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR). Over the coming weeks, we will work together with the OBR and our data suppliers to identify steps to ensure processes within the data suppliers are robust and the mechanisms to understand and challenge what is provided to the ONS are as strong as possible.  

We will consider whether and how to incorporate this work as part of the ONS’s existing workstream on public sector finance statistics transformation. This transformation programme has already begun to modernise and strengthen the processing of data within the ONS used to produce public sector finance statistics.  An automated data ingestion and cleaning process has been developed on a modern data platform on the cloud and will be progressively incorporated into use over the next few years. It will allow us to process data more quickly and reliably and provides a blueprint for future public sector legacy system transformation. Work is already underway to expand the solution for central government statistics. By March 2026 we are working to realise the benefits of the local government non-financial account system, to complete the build of pipelines for central government, establish further processing systems and complete a roadmap for future development, and improve our process for classifications. As part of conversations with data suppliers we will explore how we can use these new capabilities to ensure the data they provide to us are robust. 

We will report on early conversations alongside the next Public Sector Finance release and when the ONS provides its first quarterly update of its economic statistics and survey improvement plans in December.

James Benford is Director-General for Surveys and Economic and Social Statistics at the Office for National Statistics.