Members in attendance

• Dame Kate Barker (Chair)
• Richard Gibson (Barnett Waddingham)
• Jenny King (Which?)
• Simon Kirby (Bank of England)
• Ashwin Kumar (Manchester Metropolitan University & Institute of Public Policy and Research)
• Jill Leyland (Royal Statistical Society)
• Tom MacInnes (Citizens Advice)
• Tara Murphy (HMT)
• Ian Rowson (Independent Policy Analyst)
• Geoff Tily (TUC)

ONS Secretariat

• David Beckett
• Richard Harris

ONS Presenters

• Fred Barnes
• Stefan Ubovic

ONS Observers

• Stephen Burgess
• Abi Casey
• Grant Fitzner
• Phil Gooding
• Mike Hardie
• Andy Yeap

1. Introduction, apologies, and actions

1. The Chair welcomed everyone to the Stakeholder Panel meeting, extending a particular welcome to Tom MacInnes who had recently been appointed to the Panel to represent Citizens Advice.
2. The minutes from the previous Stakeholder Panel meeting (26 July 2024) were approved with the proviso that they explain that HCIs would need to have received accredited official statistic status well in advance of 2030.
3. It was agreed that action points 28, 39 and 42 had been completed and could be removed from the action point list.
4. David Beckett (DB) explained that the new UKSA ‘landing page’ had gone live on the UKSA website. It was agreed that DB would e-mail members a link to the new page so they can feed back thoughts on how user friendly the new system is.
5. DB explained that it was UKSA policy not to publish powerpoint presentations on their website for accessibility reasons. However, DB further explained that it was possible to publish powerpoint presentations in pdf format instead. It was therefore agreed that in the future if a paper wasn’t tabled for an agenda item, the slides would be published instead, subject to the usual considerations of confidentiality.
6. DB explained that the Ofcom announcement referenced by Simon Kirby at the last Panel, which prevents telecoms and pay TV providers including inflation-linked price rises in new contracts, won’t come into force until January 2025. DB noted that ONS were still working through the changes that need to be made to ensure that there won’t be an impact on price collection for any basket categories.
7. DB further noted that ONS were also evaluating whether the Ofcom announcement would have an impact on where mobile phone charges are prioritised within the prioritisation framework and that once this work had concluded he would circulate details to all Panel members.
8. Mike Hardie (MH) noted that the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) had completed their assessment of the Price Index of Private Rents. Mike further noted that Prices Division are in the process of reviewing the report and that OSR intend to publish the report at the beginning of October. Finally, Mike thanked the Panel members for their comments and help on behalf of OSR.
9. The Chair noted that some members of the Panel’s terms were expiring but that DB would get in touch with those members to confirm that they wished to remain on the Panel.
10. The Panel noted that much of what was contained in previously-published annual reports was already described in the minutes of each Panel. Therefore, the Panel agreed that the next annual report didn’t need to re-summarise what was already contained in the minutes, but that it should contain a list of all topics that were discussed that year so members of the public could easily find out what the Panel had considered.

Action:

David Beckett to e-mail members a link to the new ‘landing page’ on the UKSA website so they can feed back thoughts on how user friendly the new system is.

Action:

David Beckett to contact Panel members whose terms are expiring to confirm they wished to remain on the Panel.

2. Improving energy price inflation measures

1. Fred Barnes (FB) explained that ONS were no longer proposing to introduce fixed-tariff price indices based on the Ofgem data into the basket for March 2025, but that this proposal did not prevent Ofgem data being used at a later date.
2. FB explained that ONS instead propose to collect the fixed-tariff information manually from the websites of energy suppliers each month. FB further explained that the proposal was to measure a subset of the fixed-tariff market that contained the most popular tariffs.
3. The Panel welcomed the improvements the proposal delivered while noting that this area of the basket was likely to become more difficult to measure in the future because of innovations like smart charging.
4. The Panel welcomed the detail in the presentation but requested that an impact analysis be circulated which showed headline rates of CPI and CPIH when using the proposed hybrid approach (weighted average of the cohort-tracking method for fixed rates and the traditional variable tariff index) in past time periods.

Action:

Fred Barnes to circulate an impact analysis showing the effect the hybrid approach to measure energy prices had on headline CPI and CPIH in past time periods.

3. CPI intensity

1. Stefan Ubovic (SU) presented an overview of the updated methodology for new estimates of the Import Intensity of CPI and Energy Intensity of CPI, as well as a new measure of the Labour Intensity of CPI.
2. The Panel welcomed the presentation while noting that at certain time periods there had been more fluctuations in terms of where the classes sit than may have been expected.
3. The Panel noted the importance of communicating the complicated concepts in the paper to the public. SU explained that work was ongoing to write another paper which aimed to explain some of the concepts in an easily-understandable way.
4.  The Chair requested that the paper tabled for discussion today was circulated to the Technical Panel for comment and further requested that a draft of the paper being written for the public was circulated to the Panel for comment when it was ready.

Action:

Stephen Burgess to circulate the CPI intensity paper tabled at today’s Panel to the Technical Panel and Stefan Ubovic to circulate a draft of the public-facing paper on CPI intensity to the Stakeholder Panel when it was ready.

4. Any other business / Summary

1. The Chair thanked Panel members for their contributions to the meeting and the ONS for their presentations and papers.
2. The date and time of the next Panel meeting is still to be determined.