Office for National Statistics

Communicating Statistics: Crossing the minefields of misinformation

Facts and figures are coming at us fast every day, but ‘what’ or ‘who’ to trust: mainstream media, public figures and national institutions, or those random strangers in our social media feeds? In the latest episode of Statistically Speaking we focus on the use of data in public discussion and debate.     

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International Development: Growing a Global Statistical System

Global issues, such as climate change, population growth and inflation to name a few, are best understood with the benefit of good global statistics. So, to that end, the ONS works in partnership with a number of countries worldwide with the ultimate aim of raising the world’s statistical capabilities.  

In the latest episode of Statistically Speaking, podcast host Miles Fletcher chats to the head of the Ghanaian Statistical Service, Professor Samuel Annim; Emily Poskett, Head of International Development at the ONS; and Tim Harris of the ONS Data Science Campus’s international development team, about what international partnerships are achieving.  

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Direct Debits data reveal fresh economic insights

Image of graphs and money, indicating financial markets

For the first time the ONS has published new data on UK Direct Debits. This new, fast and anonymised data source provides insight on consumer payments to most of the UK’s largest companies. Dragos Cozma describes how the ONS has developed this new data source with our partners at Vocalink and Pay.UK and what it tells us about the UK economy.  

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Keeping it consistent – how we quality adjust CPI

Innovation Picture

Our consumer inflation statistics are closely watched, not only because they tell us how price rises are affecting people, but also because they are a crucial piece of information, used by the Bank of England when setting Interest rates. Chris Jenkins talks about the complex adjustments we make to ensure the index shows only real, underlying changes in prices.  

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