National Statistical

Today we have published our third quarterly update on the improvement work underway in the ONS for surveys and economic statistics. The update reflects refined priorities, reset milestones and clarity about where activity must wait until constraints are resolved. James Benford explains that, while there is still much to do, putting quality ahead of quantity, and credibility ahead of volume, remains a guiding principle that is driving an ongoing recovery in economic statistics. 

Since our April update, we have made further progress improving our surveys and economic statistics:  

• Data from the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS), following implementation in April of the final elements of agreed design changes, indicates improved responses particularly in later waves of the survey. That is encouraging and sets the scene for our first readiness assessment.  In August, we will set out the path towards transitioning the TLFS to become our headline measure for labour market statistics in 2027. 

• The Statistical Business Register (SBR) has moved to a stronger, iterative delivery model, with early benefits already being deployed through enhanced search capability within the ONS. The new approach releases value to users earlier and allows us to gather feedback.  

• In National Accounts, the IMF has accredited UK statistics as meeting their highest tier of standards, Special Data Dissemination Standard Plus.  

• Business Enterprise Research and Development statistics are now accredited by the Office for Statistics Regulation as official statistics. 

• We have published a broader information package on how we assess GDP for residual seasonality and completed the move of the remaining Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings to digital-first collection, reducing operational cost and risk, and speeding up data processing. 

These achievements build on longer term progress which has seen Labour Force Survey (LFS) responses back to broadly pre-pandemic levels, reinstatement of producer price statistics, grocery scanner data improving how we measure inflation and our in-house ClassifAI tool halving processing time for occupation coding. 

Key Performance Indicators  

The latest quarterly update also sets out new objectives and key performance indicators so you can track progress on how we were doing.  

With the additional accreditation from the OSR, 71% of our regular tier 1 and tier 2 economic statistics that are not official statistics in development are accredited official statistics. All tier 1 economic statistics were published on time and there have been no corrections to ‘higher impact’ errors in statistics produced so far this year. We have corrected 17 ‘lower impact’ errors in the period March to May 2026 – which was broadly half the number in the preceding 3-month period.  We continue to learn from these through monthly retrospectives.   

Since the last update we now have the results of our annual stakeholder satisfaction survey, which was run from 14 January to 15 March 2026 and achieved 135 responses.  There was a marked improvement in the proportion of users whose needs were fully met for inflation and labour market statistics, likely reflecting progress improving those outputs.  However, a greater proportion of users reported their needs were not met for public sector finance and global trade and investment statistics, likely reflecting the need to rebuild trust after high profile errors last year. 

Across our four social surveys, the number of interviews achieved shows recovery against previous downward trends, with LFS performance similar to pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019. We have work ongoing to learn from other countries and explore the potential costs and benefits of mandating household surveys.  

Across our business surveys, we are seeing encouraging signs of improvement and stability in our response rates. Our focus on labour market business surveys has generated a particularly strong post-pandemic recovery there. Improved performance on business surveys reflects progress moving them online and modernising operational processes, as well as the expansion of our large cases and account management units.  

Three weeks ago, I shared that the achieved sample size for the LFS will dip slightly and temporarily, following an operational issue that led to under-allocation of interviewers in that survey. This issue has now been corrected, and we are currently conducting a lessons-learned exercise.  I am confident our methods can manage the impact on the quality of the statistics, and we will publish our estimates of the impact in our next labour market release. Nevertheless, I thought it important to share the issue as soon as practicable in line with our commitment to transparency.     

Recognition from others 

It is clear to us that our users can recognise the improvements we are making. The Resolution Foundation and NIESR have publicly recognised progress we are making on quality of outputs, communications and transparency.  Both the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility have also recognised improvements in labour market statistics and communications.   

Last month, I was invited to give an inaugural keynote address at the OECD’s Committee for Statistics and Statistical Policy, to share how the UK is responding to the challenges around statistical quality. The discussion that followed was striking for how widely shared challenges are, namely increasing demands for more statistical outputs, pressure to keep pace with technological change and the imperative to maintain quality. I came away encouraged that the path we are taking at the ONS is one that others, including the OECD’s chief statistician, recognise as the right one. 

The OSR has rightly monitored closely how we are managing and reporting delivery through these updates which were at their request, and we are grateful for their ongoing constructive engagement. Today, they have said that while challenges remain, they see stronger leadership, greater transparency and a renewed focus on engagement with users.  In addition, they have indicated that, recognising the progress we have made, they will in future only respond publicly on these updates where public intervention is needed. This is an important milestone in the ONS’s recovery. 

You will of course want to make your own judgements on how the ONS is doing so. To help that process I have decided to hold a question-and-answer session with journalists today.   

There is still much to do 

Today’s update outlines the key activities we will be working to in the year ahead. 

Top priorities are progressing the Transformed Labour Force Survey to the main headline measure for labour market statistics in 2027 and embedding the SBR as the default platform for search and viewing activity, alongside the controlled expansion of its use for sampling and wider integration across statistical systems. 

One of our main updates this year into the National Accounts is the incorporation of data from the Annual Survey of Goods and Services which will significantly improve the measurement of the UK service sector.  Our recent article in June 2026 highlights this change and we will publish a further article in August describing the impact on GDP up to 2024 with the full update to GDP data following with the Blue Book in November 2026. 

We also recognise the need to do more to provide a clear steer on what measure to use to understand productivity growth.  We have been developing a new ‘component-based’ measure of productivity in line with the OECD’s latest handbook on productivity.  We discussed the results at a recent ESCoE conference and will publish an article setting out the detail on the new method in September with a view to migrating towards it as our headline estimate in November.  We expect this to materially improve understanding of productivity. 

Further, we are working to ensure our priority statistics are ready for assessment against the standards required for Accredited Official Statistics status. We will provide an update on Labour Market Statistics when we publish the outcome of our first TLFS Readiness assessment in August. OSR are also supporting us to develop a pathway for Producer Price Inflation and UK Trade statistics to be assessed for accreditation. 

Building for the future  

By implementing the latest International Macroeconomic Statistical Standards (IMSS), we are strengthening the foundations of economic statistics – improving comparability, consistency and relevance so that decision-makers can continue to rely on trusted measures of the UK economy. The package of work to transition our economic statistics is focused on implementing the classifications that matter most for gross domestic product, and the current account.  

But we also recognise there is a need to go beyond those new standards in light of the rapid developments in, and adoption of, artificial intelligence. Our latest Business Insights and Conditions Survey tells us that 29% of companies are using AI in their work, rising to almost 50% for the largest firms.  We will publish an article drawing together the various insights from our surveys on 20 July. 

AI is making material and rapid changes to the nature of intangible capital in the economy and is resulting in fundamental changes to the nature of work and drivers of GDP. It is critical that the economic system of measurement keeps up. In September 2026, we will publish the first in a series of articles that will work towards a new ‘thematic account’ describing the contribution of AI to the economy.  This is an area where the UK is leading thinking internationally working with the IMF, OECD and other National Statistics Institutes.  

Though the most pressing challenges in the UK are to restore quality, in the medium term our methods for economic measurement need to evolve to remain relevant to our changing economy.  We will make steps towards addressing that relevance challenge over the course of this year and by March 2027 will have published an AI development plan setting out how we will strengthen data collection and measurement to better capture artificial intelligence in our economic statistics. 

A more focused approach 

In summary, this update reflects the move from separate improvement plans to an integrated Surveys and Economic Statistics Improvement Plan. It gives you a single, clear view of what we are focused on and on the performance of our surveys and economic statistics. It tells you how we are addressing the remaining quality issues and how we are building for the future. It is also a basis for ongoing conversation and constructive dialogue.   

I welcome feedback on the July 2026 update here econstatsplan@ons.gov.uk

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