National Statistical

The Office for National Statistics has today announced the final ‘Go’ decision for the introduction of supermarket scanner data into consumer inflation statistics. It represents a step change in our measurement of consumer prices. Mike Hardie explains how this new approach improves the calculation of these crucial statistics.  

In recent years the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has been working hard to transform and improve the way it tracks the movement of consumer prices. At the forefront of this work is our development of dynamic consumer price statistics using digital data sources. Mike Hardie looks at how this groundbreaking work is improving our understanding of inflation in the UK economy.  

It is an exciting time in the world of inflation statistics, with several important developments due to be implemented in the coming months. Mike Hardie explains what’s changing and what it will tell us about changing prices. 

For the first time in decades inflation is a major issue again. Supply chain issues linked to the pandemic, rising fuel costs and shortages linked to the war in Ukraine have all combined to push the growth in prices to levels not seen since the early nineties. In this post Mike Hardie explains how the ONS is updating the production of UK inflation statistics to give the most detailed picture yet of how prices are changing and who they’re affecting.