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Office for National Statistics correspondence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on the Economic Statistics Plan, Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan and Transformed Labour Force Survey

Dear Mr Hoare,

Today the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published our second quarterly progress update on the Economic Statistics Plan (ESP) and Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan (SIEP), together with an update on the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS).

The past quarter has seen further tangible improvements to the quality of our economic statistics and a fall in the number of major errors made. We have implemented some of our most impactful changes, such as introducing scanner data into consumer prices, further improving responses to our household and business surveys, laying the groundwork to adhere to the highest tier of statistical dissemination standards and moved more of our processes off legacy systems. We have also implemented the final set of agreed design changes for the TLFS.

Response levels on the Labour Force Survey (LFS) have shown clear improvement, with all waves now close to their pre-pandemic levels, significantly strengthening the quality of, and confidence in, core labour market outputs. On the TLFS, the short Core Survey continues to improve response quality by reducing partial household responses and increasing the number of fully responding individuals.

The timing of transition to the TLFS for headline labour market statistics remains an evidence-led decision. The first readiness assessment, conducted in collaboration with our main users, is scheduled for July 2026 — a key milestone that will provide critical insights to inform next steps. At the readiness assessment, only one calendar quarter of data reflecting the latest set of design changes will have been collected, allowing for only a limited assessment of their impact.

Given the limited data availability, further data collection and assessment will be needed, meaning the earliest transition of headline labour market statistics has shifted from November 2026 into 2027. A 2027 transition has always been part of our scenario planning and is considered the most likely outcome.

The July readiness assessment will inform final design decisions, future publication plans and the timing of the next readiness review, which will be no later than January 2027.

We recognise this has wider implications for our capacity to improve other statistics, given the resource burden of running two labour force surveys in parallel, and we are managing this actively.

Stepping back, the breadth, scale and complexity of what we set out to achieve in the ESP and SIEP was considerable – and delivery experience has sharpened our understanding of that. Over two-thirds, 65 of the 93, milestones planned for 2025/26 have been delivered. The remaining third have proved more complicated and difficult to achieve than anticipated, reflecting a mix of system integration challenges, the time taken to mobilise required resource, the complexity of sequencing transformation at pace, and competing demands including preparation for Census 2031.

As we conclude our corporate business planning for 2026 to 2029, we are re-balancing our portfolio to protect delivery of the work that matters most. We are introducing a structured “waiting room” approach — a transparent way of sequencing change activity and holding it safely until we have the capacity and readiness to deliver it well. This is a deliberate, strategic choice. We are choosing realism over ambition to protect delivery confidence in the most critical improvements.

Our immediate focus is on five priorities: sustainable delivery of our economic statistics, setting up our people for success; addressing quality issues, drawing on a new tiering framework that prioritises improvements to statistics underpinning critical decisions; transitioning to the TLFS; delivering the Statistical Business Register, which is critical to improving coverage of smaller businesses and laying the foundation for updated industry classifications; and establishing our programme to implement new international macroeconomic statistical standards.

We will publish the next quarterly update in July 2026, aligned with the outcomes of ONS business planning for 2026-2029, keeping you and other key stakeholders informed.

I am copying this letter to Chair of the Treasury Committee, Dame Meg Hillier MP.

Yours sincerely,

James Benford

Office for National Statistics follow-up written evidence to the Lords Justice and Home Affairs Committee’s inquiry into settlement, citizenship and integration

Dear Lord Foster,

Following my evidence session with the Committee on 27 January, I am happy to write with more detail on how the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimates long-term international migration. I also committed to follow-up on data sharing arrangements with the Republic of Ireland.

Calculating long-term international migration statistics

Long-term migration is when people change the country where they usually live for 12 months or more. This is the United Nations (UN) definition of a long-term migrant. The method to calculate this, however, is different for each nationality group and whether the migrant has settled status, because the best data source is different for each of these groups: Non-EU+ and EU+ visa holders, EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS), Irish and British.

Non-EU+ and EU+ visa holders

For Non-EU+ and EU+ visa holder migration, the ONS uses Home Office Borders and Immigration (HOBI) data on long-term visas, which combines visa and travel information, to link an individual’s travel movements into and out of the country.

To estimate long-term international immigration, we look for first arrival and last departure dates that are more than 365 days apart, allowing us to ignore short trips abroad. If either of these dates are missing, then visa start or end dates are used as a proxy.

To estimate emigration, we identify previous long-term immigrants with a last departure from the UK during the reference period. We record them as a long-term emigrant if they do not return to the UK within 12 months, or if they only return for a short-term stay.

To create timely information within 5 months of the reference period, we provide provisional estimates. For example, for individuals arriving or departing within the last 12 months, there is not enough information to confirm they meet the 12-month definition yet. We use an assumption based on the past behaviour of arrivals on long-term visas who only stay short-term (the ‘early leaver adjustment’) or those who leave and return within a year (the ‘rearrival adjustment’). We apply this adjustment by reason for migration, nationality, and age, as different groups exhibit different behaviours. These provisional estimates are updated as we get further travel data to replace these assumptions with actual behaviour.

EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS)

For those with status on the EUSS, we use travel dates and calculate time spent in and out of the UK.

To identify a long-term immigrant on the EUSS, we identify periods within the UK of 45 days or more and add these periods together. This allows us to ignore short trips abroad. If the sum of these periods is 270 days or more, the person is classed as a long-term immigrant.

For a long-term emigrant, we do the same but looking for grouped periods of 45 days or more out of the country that amount to 270 days within a year.

Irish nationals

The movement allowed within the Common Travel Area means that HOBI data exclude Irish nationals. To estimate them, we use the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Registration and Population Interactions Database (RAPID) data, which is data from the tax and benefits system.

For immigration we use the number of long-term Irish national migrants coming into the UK captured in RAPID as a proportion of total EU+ immigration in RAPID in that tax year. These proportions are then applied to our total EU+ (EU+ visa holders and EUSS) HOBI immigration estimates.

For emigration, we use the proportion of Irish nationals leaving the UK in RAPID in that tax year and apply that to our total EU+ (EU+ visa holders and EUSS) HOBI immigration estimates.

British Nationals 

For British nationals’ migration we also use DWP’s RAPID data. We derive a RAPID British nationals dataset covering everyone who has a National Insurance Number (NINo) and who is not included in the Migrant Worker Scan (MWS). The MWS identifies all non-UK nationals registering for a NINo from 1975 onwards. We account for those who have naturalised and become British.

If a person has activity (interactions with the tax and benefit system) and has no evidence of a foreign address in RAPID, then the person is generally regarded as being “resident” in that year.

We look for changes in activity to see migration. An immigration event is defined as a change in residency status from “not resident” to “resident”, and an emigration event is defined as a change in residency status from “resident” to “not resident”.

A number of adjustments are made to account for situations where people may become inactive in the data for reasons other than migration, including those who become economically inactive. The method also applies a population level adjustment to correct for those who are not covered by the RAPID dataset.

These are simplified descriptions of methods that make further detailed assumptions and adjustments, which can be found in our technical user guide.

Republic of Ireland data sharing

You asked whether data is shared between the Republic of Ireland and the UK on migration. There is no data sharing between the ONS and the Republic of Ireland presently.

The ONS has previously discussed the possibility of using our data sources to understand more about travel across the border with the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) and the Central Statistics Office (CSO); however, there was no clear source of data that could assist at that time. This is noted as one of our areas for future research.

I hope this is helpful and please do let me know if I can assist the Committee further.

Yours sincerely,

Mary Gregory

Office for National Statistics response to the Home-based Working Committee report, “Is working from home working?”,

Dear Lady Scott, 

As Permanent Secretary of the Office for National Statistics (ONS), I write in response to the Home-based Working Committee’s report, “Is working from home working?”, particularly the recommendations made in paragraphs 41 and 185.  

ONS Prioritisation 

The Committee may be aware that in November 2025, the ONS announced the outcome of a prioritisation exercise and outlined how we intend to deliver trustworthy, independent, and high-quality statistics that underpin the UK’s most critical economic and societal decisions. Part of this work involves engaging government departments in relevant areas of economic statistics. The ONS produces statistical outputs that are needed for core economic statistics, and which are closely related to statistical work in other departments. In these areas, we will explore with government stakeholders whether there are opportunities to partner on specific outputs.  

Recommendation: The ONS should start collecting and publishing additional data on variable levels of hybrid working, in particular the number of days worked from home per week by hybrid workers. It should collect this data regularly and over time, to allow trends to be measured. (Paragraph 41) 

The ONS has been collecting data on hybrid workers through the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN), which provides timely insights on a range of important issues. The survey content is updated regularly to keep pace with changing user requirements, ensuring it remains flexible and responsive. Questions included in the OPN are developed with input from end users and informed by survey design expertise to ensure data needs are met. 

In response to the Committee’s recommendation, the ONS is engaging with the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) to understand future data needs on hybrid working in the UK and to consider the most appropriate approach for collecting this information. Any continuation or expansion of hybrid working questions on the OPN would require sponsorship from a Government department and would be designed so they complement, rather than duplicate, other data on this topic collected across government. 

Recommendation: The ONS should continue exploring ways to link employer and employee datasets on productivity. If the ONS lacks the capability to develop this data, the Government should stand ready to provide it with the support it needs. (Paragraph 185) 

The ONS recognises the significant benefits that a Linked Employer–Employee Data (LEED) infrastructure would bring in improving existing core economic statistics and generating new insights to better understand the labour market and productivity. To this end, we have established a comprehensive work programme to develop LEED, drawing on expertise from both internal and external stakeholders. We have recently reaffirmed our commitment to exploring the further use of administrative data, where we hope this further enhance the quality of our labour market statistics.  

In collaboration with the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE), the ONS has published a roadmap outlining the key features of the LEED development. A LEED ‘spine’ of employer-employee identity linkages will allow employees and employers to be tracked together over time. This spine will link Pay As You Earn Real Time Information (PAYE RTI) from HMRC with the Inter-Departmental Business Register (IDBR), thereby integrating data on workers—such as pay and limited demographic characteristics—with firm characteristics.  

Work is currently underway to implement this spine, with the aim of publishing a technical note and an initial set of exploratory statistics in the second half of this year. Our intention is to progressively augment this spine with relevant survey and administrative data that can provide additional information on employers and employees. This is subject to agreeing data sharing and linking with data owners and developing reliable methodologies for linking and new statistics. This could include productivity measures based on administrative data sources. 

We believe the LEED initiative represents a significant step forward in strengthening the evidence base for economic policy and decision making.  

Yours sincerely, 

Darren Tierney 

Office for National Statistics correspondence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee on update on progress and plans

Dear Simon,   

I wanted to provide an update on our progress and plans, which I committed to in my first letter to the Committee of 17 September 2025. 

Upon joining the organisation, I set out my four key priorities for the Office for National Statistics (ONS): 

  1. Implement the Economic Statistics Plan (ESP) and Survey Improvement and Enhancement Plan (SIEP) 
  2. Create a culture that delivers for the organisation and for our people 
  3. Transform our digital estate, and move away from legacy technology  
  4. Prepare for the delivery of the 2031 Census 

Since I last updated you on our progress, I have continued to take the difficult decisions needed to ensure we can deliver these priorities and reestablish the ONS as the proud, trusted institution it should be. This includes an overhaul of the leadership and structure of the organisation, reducing or stopping lower priority activity, and building a People Plan that can deliver a transformed organisational culture. I have taken many of these decisions to put in place an environment that enhances delivery and performance, and I am confident that we’re now seeing green shoots of recovery in our day-to-day statistical production. 

As explained in my letter of 11 November, we are renewing our focus on priority economic and population statistics. We are also prioritising resourcing our recovery plans, with a focus on attracting those with the skills needed, including increasing people working on the ESP and SIEP. As such, as an Executive Committee (ExCo), we have made the difficult but necessary decisions to prioritise our resource and funding, and will be reducing our suite of activity across our health, international, subnational and local portfolio, in addition to some lower priority economic statistics outputs. This includes working with key stakeholders to review the status and funding of these statistics, and pivoting activity to focus on work that contributes to our organisational priorities. 

Improvements to our economic statistics 

In 2025, we started to make real progress with regards to improving some of our economic statistics, including house price statistics now being less prone to revision, restoring our producer price index statistics, reframing our monthly GDP statistics to remove the focus from the volatile monthly change, and restoring the achieved sample sizes for the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to levels similar to those seen pre-pandemic. On the latter, I am pleased that the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility have publicly recognised these increased LFS sample sizes and are regaining confidence in these estimates.  

Across 2026, I am confident we can continue this momentum: 

  • In March, we will introduce supermarket scanner data into our headline inflation statistics, which will allow us to go from 25,000 price points collected from price collectors to 300 million price points directly from checkouts, providing a more comprehensive measure of grocery prices. 
  • In April, we hope to introduce further developments to the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) such as ‘data rotation’, to make the survey faster and improve data quality. 
  • We will build on the success of ‘ClassifAI’ and roll out AI technology across our survey operations. This will include deploying ClassifAI to the Business Register Employment Survey, allowing further automation of previously arduous processes. 
  • We are focusing on strengthening our relationships with businesses, reducing the burden of our business surveys, and improving our business register with the new Statistical Business Register. 

Enhancing our population and migration statistics 

Last year, we reached some crucial milestones in improving our suite of population, migration and social statistics: 

  • In October 2025, after a period of development, our Domestic Abuse statistics were evaluated as meeting the rigorous standards to become “Accredited Official Statistics”. 
  • Since November 2025, we have reduced our reliance on the International Passenger Survey (IPS), moving to an administrative data approach, utilising data from the Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions, to produce estimates of migration into and out of the United Kingdom. 

In 2026, a key priority will be the continued preparations for the 2031 Census, which will be a ‘digital first’ census, and build on the success of 2021. The 2031 Census will introduce targeted improvements that make the best use of administrative data and modern technology, including the potential (and appropriate) use of AI, delivering operational efficiency and better meeting user needs, whilst enabling participation for those who are digitally excluded. 

I look forward to delivering against our priorities and continuing to improve the quality of our core economic and population statistics in 2026 and warmly welcome your engagement as the ONS continues along its recovery. 

Best regards,  

Darren Tierney 

Office for National Statistics follow up written evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry into the Work of the UK Statistics Authority

Dear Mr Hoare,

Following evidence I gave to your Committee in July, and a subsequent request for supplementary evidence, please find additional information on the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS), Planning & Portfolio management, and the Integrated Data Service (IDS) enclosed.

Please do let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Rourke

TLFS

Can you please provide the initial project documentation for TLFS?

The TLFS was created from a series of legacy research and delivery projects over many years. The complexity of this evolution underpins some of the challenges the project has faced. The timeline of the TLFS is enclosed at Annex A. The first prototype of this survey was called the Labour Market Survey (LMS), which was later renamed the TLFS.

The high-level design for the TLFS was originally based on design concepts developed within the Data Collection Transformation Programme, which were presented to and endorsed by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) National Statistics Executive Group (NSEG) in May 2017 as part of the solution to falling Labour Force Survey (LFS) response rates. This paper and its annexes are enclosed at Annex B.

This design was taken forward for development within the Integrated Population and Characteristics Survey (IPACS) project in June 2019 under the Census and Data Collection Transformation Programme (CDCTP). A paper on the development of the IPACS was presented to the Methodological Assurance Review Panel in June 2019 and is enclosed at Annex C.

The fundamental features of the IPACS design were:

  • An online first survey.
  • A respondent centred design approach which engaged respondents in its creation and minimised respondent burden.
  • An integrated design – which brought together the existing multiple disparate surveys across the ONS into a single master survey with accompanying topic-based follow-up modules (i.e. labour market, household expenditure etc). See Figure 1 in Annex C.
  • The significant use of administrative data: to inform both survey sampling, and to enable surveys to be significantly shortened through the replacement of questions on data already held by government, such as house valuation, council tax, income etc. See Figure 1 in Annex C.

In developing and implementing this original survey design, the TLFS lessons learnt review, published in December 2024, outlines key issues that were encountered: “The original IPACS design was for a modular system with a combination of surveys and administrative data to meet the wide range of user requirements. With the lack of available administrative data, organisational priorities in delivering Census and the impact of the pandemic, TLFS subsequently became the de facto solution for meeting all user needs rather than just the core labour market.”

This led to the loss of the integrated design approach and the loss of administrative data to shorten the survey. Without administrative data to replace survey questions, the LMS was longer than originally intended in the concept but still aimed to be substantially shorter than the LFS (200 to 300 variables on the LMS vs 604 variables on the LFS).

However, we received demand from stakeholders to continue to collect variables to meet their needs. This feedback meant that options to reduce the length of the survey were minimal given the limited time remaining before the CDCTP programme and funding ended and the lack of alternative online surveys to house the questions. The fallback position was to transition remaining question blocks on the LFS relatively rapidly onto the TLFS. This became the final design of the first iteration of the TLFS which went live in October 2023.

In 2024, with an unacceptable level of missingness and drop-out on the survey evident in six months of testing, the UK Statistics Authority Board formally endorsed the development and testing of a significantly shorter TLFS labour market “Core” survey. The revised survey design was approved by the Board in March 2025, and the shortened TLFS survey went live on 7 July 2025 (with other design improvements due to be implemented over the next 6 months).

To what extent were stakeholders engaged at the start of the process?

During 2016-18, as the earliest design research was completed, existing LFS stakeholders across government were kept up to date with regular meetings. This included detailed justifications for conducting the research and implications for the overall design of the new survey. This early engagement highlighted that this was a new transformed survey rather than an updated version of the current LFS for online use. Findings from the research were also shared widely via social research industry seminars and conferences and formally published at a later date.

In 2018-19, as part of the initial IPACS design and development, an extensive stakeholder engagement exercise took place with LFS users across central government department, including the Bank of England, HM Treasury and local government interest groups. Requirements for a transformed survey were gathered via a template which was completed by all major LFS stakeholders across government. They were asked which specific LFS variables they currently used, (and hence needed to be included in the transformed survey) what outputs these fed into, and what other survey design requirements they had (e.g. longitudinal data).

This user engagement at the start of the process was maintained at a working level throughout the life of the project. This included continued regular briefings, published guides and information. For example, in December 2023 and January 2024, as the TLFS parallel run was initiated in full, briefings and updates took place with over a hundred users of the LFS across government.

In light of the substantial challenges that labour market statistics faced, and the considerable impact that this was having on key users, the overall approach to stakeholder and user engagement with labour market statistics was significantly improved in 2024. The new approach also looked to address identified limitations with how critical users had been engaged with the TLFS to date.

The key elements of the new approach included:

  • A new Labour Market Technical Group chaired at a senior level and meeting monthly, comprising representatives from HMT, the Bank of England, Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Department for Business and Trade (DBT). This provides a space for robust technical dialogue, constructive challenge and meaningful engagement.
  • A new independent Stakeholder Advisory Panel chaired by Professor Jonathan Portes with representatives from Government, Academia and Think Tanks. This provides independent advice on the production, publication, uses and applications of labour market statistics and their technical aspects.
  • A commitment to regular external updates that combined updates on LFS and TLFS and addressed recommendations from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR).
  • New opportunities for a wider set of users to engage including public webinars and the UK Statistics Assembly.
  • A Household, Socioeconomic and Local Technical Group, established in 2025, that convenes monthly to inform and assure our approach to data collection, requirements, prioritisation and engagement for the wider household and socioeconomic data collected by the TLFS. It has a diverse membership, including users from the devolved governments, central and local government, and think tanks.

This engagement approach was integral to informing, assuring and endorsing the improved TLFS design approved by the Board in March 2025, and will continue to be critical as we move towards transition from the LFS to TLFS.

Who was the Senior Responsible Officer (SRO) for the TLFS?

As detailed in Annex A, the TLFS as a programme is a relatively recent creation. The relevant SROs who have contributed to the history of the TLFS across the accompanying survey development and statistical output development projects are as follows.

YearSurvey and Processing DevelopmentStatistical Output Development
2016Data Collection Transformation Programme (DCTP) – Pete Benton, Director of Data Collection
2017
2018
2019Census and Data Collection Transformation Programme (CDCTP) – Iain Bell, Director General and Deputy National Statistician (Population and Public Policy)
2020
2021Donna Leong, Director of Economic Statistics Change and SRO of the Ambitious, Radical, Inclusive Economic Statistics (ARIES) Programme
2022Census and Data Collection Transformation Programme (CDCTP) – After Iain Bell’s departure, Pete Benton briefly stepped in to the SRO role before Ruth Studley was recruited as Director of Population Transformation.Jason Zawadzki, Director of Economic Statistics Change and SRO of the ARIES Programme
2023 - April 2024Ruth delegated to Alex Lambert, Director of Survey Operations.
April 2024 - April 2025Survey Enabling Programme – Philippa Bonay, Director of Operations -
April 2025 - onwardsPhilippa delegated to Alex Lambert, Director of Social Surveys

Programme and Portfolio office

Can you set out in writing what the responsibilities of the programme and portfolio office are (and, if relevant, whether the role of the office has changed over time)? 

Can you clarify who has filled this post since 2020? 

The roles and responsibilities outlined should be seen in the context of the hierarchy of roles in Annex D. The Portfolio Management team in the ONS supports the portfolio on behalf of the ONS Executive Committee [ExCo]. Prior to a streamlining of governance structures in May 2025, the roles and responsibilities ascribed to ExCo were carried out by a sub-committee named the Portfolio Investment Committee [PIC] which reported to ExCo. These responsibilities have now been absorbed into ExCo.

The ONS portfolio includes significant change programmes required to deliver the UKSA Strategy and ONS Priority Outcomes. The team is part of the Planning and Portfolio Management Division within the Finance, Planning and Performance Directorate. From 2020 – April 2025 Megan Cooper was the Deputy Director for this division; at present James O’Brien occupies the post.

The Portfolio Management team monitors and analyses the portfolio and its constituent programmes on behalf of ExCo, providing regular updates and insights with respect to six key performance indicators: milestones, resource, finance, risks and issues, dependencies, and benefits. As well as regular reporting on the health of the portfolio, the Portfolio Management team offers the following services to Programmes, Projects and Project Management Offices across the ONS:

  • Portfolio Assurance – the Portfolio Management team provide second line assurance to SROs on the portfolio via regular monitoring, and an independent perspective on programme performance to ExCo. The team provides expert advice to governance bodies, SROs, and project delivery professionals on governance and assurance, in line with government Project Delivery standards. The portfolio management team also carries out critical friend reviews on behalf of SROs and programme health checks for all programmes on the portfolio (the latter being mandated in 2024 following an internal audit recommendation). Programme Lifecycle Management has been mandated since 2023, and since then three non-Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) programmes under the portfolio have undergone gateway reviews. The Portfolio Assurance Team is actively involved in the planning of National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) assurance reviews, as well as coordinating assurance support for wider Government departments.
  • Portfolio Governance and Risk – the Portfolio Management team reports portfolio-level risks on behalf of ExCo, identifying and sharing emerging themes across the portfolio for insight and awareness. The team also provides risk support and guidance directly to programmes including facilitating risk identification workshops, reviewing existing risk profiles and governance structures, and provision of risk and issue templates for board packs and highlight reports.
  • Business Case Management – the Portfolio Management team coordinates key-holder and wider organisational assurance of business cases on behalf of ExCo to support investment decisions. Through a sub-group of ExCo (Investment and Delivery Assurance Group [IDAG]), the team facilitates awareness and encourages challenge on deliverability and value for money of investments. They also provide advice and guidance to those developing business cases.
  • Benefit Management – the Portfolio Management team provides guidance, advice, and leadership on benefits management approach.
  • Programme and Project Management lifecycle management – the Portfolio Management team provides advice, guidance and templates to the programmes related to all aspects of the project and programme lifecycle.

The ONS implements a tiered approach to the portfolio based on complexity and strategic value that determines the optimum governance and controls for delivering change successfully, consistent with HM Government’s Teal Book guidance. To be on-boarded onto the ONS portfolio, change activities must have an approved business case that sets out the strategic value and alignment to the ONS Priority Outcomes. Business cases are expected to include a Risk Potential Assessment setting out the level of risk associated with the change which contributes to the decision to on-board the programme to the ONS portfolio. As part of the ONS portfolio, programmes/projects are made more visible to executive governance committees and the Authority Board via monthly reporting of key management information and insights. They are also provided with additional support from the portfolio team when it comes to assurance.

Aside from its primary focus supporting the ONS portfolio, the portfolio management team also provides some support to projects and programmes outside of the portfolio, providing tools and templates to support the complete programme/project lifecycle, signposting directorates to support available from start to finish of their programme journey. The function also undertakes an annual maturity assessment to support continuous improvement in line with the Project Delivery Functional Standard and Teal Book. This assessment is the basis for an action plan that forms the team’s continuous improvement goals for the year.

Integrated Data Service (IDS)

Can you set out costs of the IDS since 2020 in writing?

The Integrated Data Service (IDS) was being delivered by the Integrated Data Programme (IDP), a cross-government programme funded by HM Treasury through a ring-fenced budget. For the financial years 2020/21 to 2024/25 inclusive, the total expenditure recorded against this ring-fenced budget was approximately £223.7million. (This figure was rounded to £224 million and summarised as ‘expenditure to date’ when provided to the Committee as oral evidence on 8 July 2025.) The annual breakdown is as follows

For the financial year 2020/21, the total expenditure of the IDS/IDP ring-fence was approximately £15.5 million.

For the financial year 2021/22, the total expenditure of the IDS/IDP ring-fence was approximately £38.8 million.

For the financial year 2022/23, the total expenditure of the IDS/IDP ring-fence was approximately £56 million.

For the financial year 2023/24, the total expenditure of the IDS/IDP ring-fence was approximately £59.1 million.

For the financial year 2024/25, the total expenditure of the IDS/IDP ring-fence was approximately £54.3 million.

Pete Benton was appointed SRO of this programme by ONS and the (then) IPA in 2024, but a separate DG for the IDS was also appointed. Can you please clarify who is responsible for what?

The decisions for these appointments were made by the former National Statistician, Sir Ian Diamond.

Nigel Green was appointed to undertake a specific IDP role on a two day a week contract, adding programme delivery leadership. Nigel has a track record of successful major programme delivery from elsewhere in government with a digital background. Pete Benton’s background as a statistician allowed him to lead on developing the service in a way that could meet the analytical demands of users.

Pete and Nigel’s collaboration is best described as a shared leadership model, with Pete focusing on strategy and stakeholder engagement, and Nigel driving delivery and programme execution.

Nigel Green could not be SRO for the programme as Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA)/National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority (NISTA) require that this role only be undertaken by an appointed Civil Servant, and not by those in a contractor role. In addition, the role that Pete Benton was asked to undertake (to cover for a Director General’s sick leave) was broader than just the IDP, with leadership responsibilities across the Data Capability Group. The Data Capability Group includes the IDP and IDS as well as the Digital Services, and the Data Growth & Operations directorates.

Can you confirm if there were any major data programs which now will not be able to proceed because of the closure of the IDS program?

While the ONS does not use the term ‘major data programme’ in relation to the IDS analytical project pipeline, the pipeline of projects has been assessed on their alignment to ONS priorities and their potential impact to Government Missions. This has resulted in a number of IDS project applications that do not align to ONS priorities being declined, including seven project applications that could support government missions on employment, health, crime and economy. Where we deem a project to have high potential impact to Government Missions these will be considered on a case-by-case basis by ExCo as part of our exemption process, which is currently in development.

Linked data represents a highly valuable and underutilised asset to government. Secure access to safely linked data, as enabled by the IDS, creates new opportunities for highly impactful analysis, unlocking the insights needed to shape policy and lead to better outcomes for citizens.

The IDS has responded to government demand and focussed on linkages that unlock important policy questions, such as the linkages between health and labour market data; the linkage between properties (including energy usage) and individuals; and the linkage of business data, including links to employees. The IDS was previously focused on supporting analytic projects that align to the government’s central missions, such as analysis of healthcare interventions and labour market activity, and research into attributes and geographic distributions of people and households living in poverty.

Restricting access to the linked data / data linkage assets will limit the potential of this valuable government resource. The decision to focus the assets on ONS priorities, where they can contribute to our core statistics, means that the IDS is only accepting new applications for external use by strict exception.

The ONS is working closely, and on a case-by-case basis with its partners in academia and across government to fully understand and mitigate the impact of restricted access. In particular, the ONS is:

  • Working with Administrative Data Research UK (ADR UK) to support the continued preparation of research-ready data, access to which could be provisioned to academic researchers via the Secure Research Service;
  • Working with DSIT to explore options for the work of the IDS to be integrated into the National Data Library’s Kickstarter Programme; and
  • Developing an exemption process, whereby access to linked data already held by ONS could be provided to external analysts in limited instances – where analysis is assessed to be of high value to government; with an underpinning cost-recovery model; and where this activity does not distract from the ONS’ core organisational priorities.

Office for National Statistics

August 2025

Annex A: TLFS timeline

YearSurvey and Processing DevelopmentStatistical Output Development
2016Original design, stakeholder engagement and research work under the Data Collection Transformation Programme (DCTP)
2017
2018
2019Initial Integrated Population and Characteristics Survey (IPACS) design and development within the Census and Data Collection Transformation Programme (CDCTP). Renaming of IPACS into the Labour Market Survey (LMS).
2020Launch of the partially completed LMS survey during the pandemic as the Labour Force Survey (LFS) response rates dropped significantly due to lockdown. While the LMS was launched in its half-finished state, further development was deprioritised due to Census 2021 and the Covid Infection Survey.
2021Re-start and development of the LMS post Census 2021. Remaining survey questions were added to the online version and telephone and ‘knock-to-nudge’ modes added. Parallel run against LFS starts October 2023.Creation of the accompanying Labour Market Transformation project within the Ambitious, Radical, Inclusive Economic Statistics (ARIES) Programme within ESEG to manage the transition of labour market outputs from LFS to LMS.
2022LFS and TLFS quality compared in April 2024 – further work required due to quality issues.
2023
2024End of CDCTP programme, TLFS project moved to a new Survey Enabling Programme.
2025Development of shorter TLFS completed and formal decision in March 2025 to create a single TLFS programme to implement the improved TLFS design. The new programme encompasses previous work on TLFS survey and processing design and Labour Market Transformation.

 

Annex D: Roles and Responsibilities for Project Delivery

  • Accounting Officer – accountable to Parliament for how public money is spent by ONS. Chairs the Executive Committee.
  • Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) – has delegated authority (via an SRO appointment letter) from the Accounting Officer, and in the case of the Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP), from HMT to run projects/programmes according to best practice and in line with HMT guidance on the use of public money. The SRO of a GMPP programme is accountable to Parliament for the performance of the programme and ensuring it meets the needs of the business as set out in the business case.
  • Director of Finance, Planning and Performance is responsible for ensuring that public money is safeguarded and used appropriately and efficiently, advising the Accounting Officer in this regard.
  • The Planning & Portfolio Management Division supports executive governance by advising on the processes and structures to enable successful portfolio management and associated decision making. They present the monthly portfolio scorecard along with insights drawn from trend analysis and lessons learned. They provide project delivery support to the organisation aligned to conventional project delivery standards. Regular engagement with project delivery staff takes place to ensure these processes and practices are understood.
  • Key Holders support decision making by providing assurance on business cases at appropriate staged gates.
  • Programme Management Offices are set up to support the SROs of significant programmes. These are situated within the directorates from which the programmes are being delivered.

Office for National Statistics correspondence to the Treasury Committee on economic statistics

Dear Dame Meg Hillier,

The previous National Statistician made a commitment to your Committee to provide regularupdates on labour market statistics and other economic statistics as necessary. I am writing in my capacity as Acting National Statistician to continue this commitment and enclose the latest update.

Labour market statistics

On 21 July, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published an update on labour market transformation progress and plans. Our recently published plans for Economic Statistics and Survey Improvement and Enhancement underline the importance of the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS) for delivering high-quality labour market statistics.

The short Core survey – a streamlined, longitudinal, labour market-focused questionnaire that takes 15 minutes per household to complete on average (compared with an average of around 30 minutes for the longer version of the TLFS) – launched in early July 2025 with a Wave 1 sample size of 90,000 households per quarter across Great Britain. 

Combined with the introduction of face-to-face supported completion in October 2025 and data rotation (not re-asking the full questionnaire for each wave) for Waves 2-5 in January 2026, this is expected to reduce respondent burden, improve completion rates and representativeness, and enhance the overall data quality for the headline labour market indicators. 

 The Core survey is complemented by a cross-sectional “Plus” survey with a separate sample of 90,000 households per quarter. We are collaborating with users to assess how the Plus survey is meeting their needs for additional labour market, and wider household, socioeconomic and local data. 

The timing of transition to the TLFS remains an evidence-led decision. We will carry out a readiness assessment in collaboration with our main users in July 2026. We aim to transition our published headline labour market statistics in November 2026, although this may extend into 2027 if our (or users’) assessment of quality requires more data to be collected and assessed.

Therefore, the Labour Force Survey (LFS) remains the lead measure for data on the supply of labour while further development of the TLFS takes place. Following discussion with our main users, we published our LFS quality update alongside our labour market statistics release on 13 May. The interventions made so far to address quality concerns with the LFS – such as reinstating the sample boost, returning to face-to-face interviewing, increasing incentives and the ongoing recruitment of additional interviewers – have now fed through all five waves of the survey and improvements can broadly be seen in response levels and rates, as well as the composition of respondents according to different characteristics. These improvements are important as they increase confidence that the LFS can be fit for purpose until the transition to TLFS takes place.

The TLFS was established as a formal programme in June 2025, having previously been managed as distinct projects within two separate programmes. This change brings together the full end-to-end scope of delivery, with a designated Senior Responsible Owner, clear accountability, governance and measurable objectives. The Programme Board includes external representatives from the devolved governments and HM Treasury.

We continue to engage with external stakeholders for assurance of our approach, including the Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Labour Market Statistics[2], the Labour Market Technical Group and the Household, Socioeconomic and Local Group. The programme remains focused on restoring user confidence in our labour market statistics and in our wider household, socioeconomic and local statistics.

Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) statistics

Following publication of the April 2025 CPI figures on 21 May, an error was discovered in the licensed vehicles data provided by the Department for Transport which had been used to calculate the April Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) component.

The incorrect data overstated the number of vehicles subject to VED rates applicable in the first year of registration. This had the effect of overstating the headline Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH), CPI and Retail Prices Index (RPI) 12-month rates for April 2025 by 0.1 percentage points. The ONS has used the correctly weighted data from May 2025 figures onwards.

This error is isolated to one component dataset that is used to calculate the VED index. However, the ONS is reviewing its quality assurance processes for external data sources in light of this issue.

Producer Price Inflation (PPI) statistics

The then National Statistician wrote to you in April regarding the quality challenges facing PPI statistics. On 10 July 2025 we published an update on progress towards resuming publication of PPI and SPPI bulletins. We have published an indicative PPI/SPPI dataset and we intend to reinstate full publication of our monthly PPI and quarterly SPPI bulletins in October 2025. At this time, once assured of quality, we also intend to apply to the Office for Statistics Regulation to reinstate official statistics accreditation status of the data.

Please do let me know should you have any further questions.

I am copying this letter to Simon Hoare MP, Chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

Yours sincerely,

Emma Rourke

UK Statistics Authority oral evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry on the work of the UK Statistics Authority

On Tuesday 8 July, Sir Robert Chote, Chair of the UK Statistics Authority, Emma Rourke, Acting National Statistician and Ed Humpherson, Director General for Regulation, gave evidence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee’s inquiry on the work of the UK Statistics Authority.

A transcript of which has been published on the UK Parliament website. 

Office for National Statistics follow-up correspondence to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee inquiry in the Work of the UK Statistics Authority

Dear Mr Hoare,

During the evidence session with your Committee on 1 July, I committed to follow-up in writing with further detail.

I mentioned action we had taken on culture prior to Sir Robert Devereux’s review at  corporate level. This included an organisational review of psychological safety across the Senior Civil Service (SCS) cadre of the Office for National Statistics (ONS). This was commissioned by PBS (People and Business Services) and undertaken by Labyrinth Coaching & Consulting (LCC) from January to March 2023 and explored concerns raised at an earlier SCS away-day. It offered an objective assessment of the current landscape in relation to psychological safety, to challenge where needed, and to work with the ONS executive to make recommendations to improve the experience of psychological safety for both senior leaders and for colleagues more broadly. The report is annexed to this letter. Actions taken as a result included:

  • Creating a clearer system for managing prioritisation of activities.
  • Streamlining our governance structure to clarify how decisions are made and communicated.
  • An in-depth discussion on psychological safety and related behaviours at an all-SCS event.
  • Additional focus given to our Speak Up framework, which we also refreshed in 2024.

Since late 2023, the ONS has offered a series of webinars, workshops and self-directed learning courses to Grade 6 and 7 colleagues to assist with leading and managing change. We also produced an internal ‘Your Experience’ report for 2024, which pulled together employee engagement insights, both qualitative and quantitative, from the People Survey and other employee surveys. This was shared internally across the ONS, and colleagues were encouraged to reflect on the themes (such as leadership and managing change, organisation objectives and purpose, wellbeing,
inclusion, and learning and development) and implement action to improve experiences both individually and as part of their teams.

This is not an exhaustive list but highlights corporate level work that was complemented by team level actions that drew upon People Survey results and other data relevant to individual ONS divisions and teams.

During the session, I also agreed to provide the number of SCS in the ONS who are badged statisticians. I can confirm that as of June 2025, there are 27 badged statisticians (30%) within the SCS, of these 22 are at SCS1, 4 at SCS2, and 1 at SCS3. There are a range of skills required throughout our senior leadership team, with many aligning to professions such as the Government Economic Service, Government Digital and Data, and Operational Delivery.

We also discussed several senior leadership appointments within the ONS that have taken place in the last few years, on which I said I would provide more information.

The Director for Operations role description is annexed for the Committee’s information. This role was created on the direction of the then National Statistician, in response to the departure of the Second Permanent Secretary and considering a tight financial operating environment. The Cabinet Office confirmed that as Accounting Officer, the National Statistician had the ability to do this. This was a broadening of an existing role at the same substantive level, which is common practice across the Civil Service. The Operations Group brings together enabling and delivery functions across the organisation.

We also spoke about the Second Permanent Secretary role. To my understanding, this role was introduced in September 2020, working with the Cabinet Office. The addition of a Second Permanent Secretary provided support to the leadership of the organisation during an extremely busy time for the ONS, including delivering the 2021 Census and the associated demands of the Covid-19 pandemic response, such as the running of the Covid-19 Infection Survey.

I also wanted to clarify detail on the leadership of the data capability group. Alison Pritchard, Director General for Data Capability went on sick leave in February 2024. Pete Benton, who was Director General of Special Projects at the time, was asked in February 2024 to cover this position, initially on an interim basis, supporting the leadership team in the business area. Given this timing I can confirm that there was not the gap in operational leadership, as I had said at the session. Pete was then formally made Senior Responsible Owner for the Integrated Data Programme (IDP) from mid-April 2024 which encapsulated the full strategic and leadership role.

To my understanding, in March 2024, Nigel Green was brought in by the then National Statistician, with the agreement of the Cabinet Office, to support the IDP. Nigel is a fixed-term contractor working two days a week at Director General level. He has operated as the delivery lead for the IDP, complementing Pete’s strategic oversight as SRO. He does not have any line management responsibilities.

I hope this is helpful. I look forward to our next discussion on 8 July.

I am copying this letter to the Chair of the Authority, Sir Robert Chote.

Yours sincerely,
Emma Rourke