Introduction
Chair’s foreword
The 2024-25 financial year has been a challenging one for the official statistical system and for the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in particular. Colleagues across the ONS have been working with their characteristic expertise and determination to deliver statistics for the public good, but there have been concerns about the quality of some outputs both within the Authority and among external stakeholders.
Having provided support and challenge to the ONS both directly and through the work of our Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), in April the Authority Board and the Cabinet Office (our sponsor department) commissioned a review of the performance and culture of the ONS from Sir Robert Devereux, a seasoned former Permanent Secretary and mentor to Whitehall leaders. We thank him for his contribution and also the many ONS staff and stakeholders who helped inform his conclusions.
Sir Robert’s review was published in June 2025 and the Board and Cabinet Office support his recommendations. Sir Robert recommended a greater focus on the production of core economic statistics, which the ONS has responded to by publishing ‘Restoring confidence, improving quality: the plan for economic statistics’ and a plan for the improvement and enhancement of household and business surveys. Taken together, these also respond to the review of ONS economic statistics published by the Office for Statistics Regulation in April this year. Sir Robert also recommended that the role of the National Statistician be split, at least temporarily, with a Permanent Secretary (for The Authority) responsible for the operational running of the organisation and the National Statistician focused on statistical expertise and leadership. Sir Robert’s final recommendation was to review the long-term governance of the Authority and statistical system. The implementation of these recommendations will mean an ongoing period of change for the ONS and the Authority, and the Board stands ready to support the executive through this.
Notwithstanding the challenges faced this year, there has been much to welcome and celebrate. In January, we hosted the inaugural Statistical Assembly, a partnership between the UK Statistics Authority and the Royal Statistical Society. Proposed by Professor Denise Lievesley in her independent review of the Authority, the event saw hundreds of users and stakeholders gather together, in-person and online, to discuss and debate the crucial issues facing the UK statistical system, from the future of the Census to health disparities, the labour market to the future of AI.
We were delighted by the enthusiasm and passion that attendees brought to the rich discussion on the day, and the sense of us pulling together as one community to help sustain and improve the breadth of statistics produced in the UK. I am grateful to Professor Cathie Sudlow for chairing the event; Professor David Hand for his independent report distilling the main takeaways; and members of the Assembly delivery group for volunteering their time to help ensure the day was a success.
As an organisation, we have begun putting what we heard into practice as well as continuing to embed the other formal recommendations of Professor Lievesley’s review. Inevitably, the need properly to resource the ONS’s plan to improve its core statistics will require some reprioritisation and refocusing of human and financial resources, which means that there will be less scope to meet some stakeholder requests and ideas for new activity than we would ideally have wished.
This year has also seen the closure of the ARIES (Ambitious, Radical, Inclusive Economic Statistics) programme. This has delivered a suite of benefits and improvements to economic statistics which will help underpin and complement the additional efforts of the new recovery plan and the ongoing programme of work to transform ONS’s labour market statistics which was announced at the beginning of the 2025/26 financial year. The programme has fortified many areas of statistical production. For example, the ONS has laid the groundwork to improve financial sector data, which is helping the UK meet its international commitments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), yielding benefits in the years to come. Some are already in the hands of users, more closely meeting their needs: fully revamped data on research and development, and richer consumer prices statistics using data from private rents, second-hand cars, and rail fares.
There have also been strides for the ONS in the population space this year, with significant progress made in producing administrative-based population estimates, utilising the wealth of data held across government to produce more timely insights. Reflecting the continued progress required in this area, and stakeholder feedback on their needs, the Authority recommended to the Government in June that the ONS once again undertake a census with universal coverage in 2031. In this twin track approach to population data, each track strengthens the other.
Last year’s Report and Accounts were laid following the General Election of 2024, but this is the first to cover the pre-election period and then the change of government. Though we are, as an organisation and as leaders, independent of government, this has meant some new priorities for the system and elevated others (such as population statistics and the future of data sharing). The Authority has engaged with Ministers, Parliament, and the devolved assemblies to help them shape the future of our statistical system amid a range of other new initiatives.
During the pre-election period in particular, the OSR’s campaign for ‘Intelligent Transparency’ has gone from strength to strength, being taken up by journalists, think tanks, political candidates and others. The principle that statistical claims and statements should be based on data to which everyone has equal access, that are clearly and transparently defined, and for which there is acknowledgement of any uncertainties and relevant context is more important today than ever.
The OSR has accomplished much of value through the year, providing support and challenge to statisticians in government to be open and progressive in improving quality and ways of working despite resource pressures and increasing demand. This includes its regulation of ONS, especially its review of economic statistics to which the new strategy is in part a response. Much work was also undertaken as the OSR prepared to update the Code of Practice for Statistics.
For the Government Statistical Service (GSS) as a whole, we have also seen considerable progress, with the network producing its strategic vision for the GSS, entitled Strength in Numbers. It sets out to improve ways of working between statisticians, and we can already see colleagues pushing each other to seize opportunities for collaboration, develop leadership skills, uphold the Code of Practice and Intelligent Transparency, and share successes from innovation and transformation. Furthermore, in putting it together they have already demonstrated the excellent things we can do when working across departmental boundaries, and this augurs well for the future health of the statistical system.
We are now drawing to the close of the Authority’s current strategy, Statistics for the Public Good 2020-25. Recalling how the last five-year period began with the statistical system suddenly having to respond to the Covid pandemic (which then also had lasting consequences for the system, not least accelerating the decline in household survey response rates), we have to look ahead to the next five years with humility and a recognition that we do know now exactly what shocks and pressures the system will need to confront. But the principle of working for the public good – providing and disseminating data and analysis that helps us understand society and the economy and make informed decisions – remains supremely valid.
Let me close by paying tribute to Sir Ian Diamond, who stepped down as National Statistician in May having led the ONS and the GSS for six years. He brought passion, dedication and hard work to the role, along with vast experience and knowledge, and in doing so became a hugely respected champion for data and statistics across government. He oversaw one of the most successful censuses in 2021, and helped steward the country through the pandemic by standing up the gold-standard Covid Infection Survey and providing his expert advice. We all wish him the very best for the future. I am very grateful to Emma Rourke for having stepped up as Acting National Statistician when Sir Ian departed and for the dedication and commitment she has brought to that task.
Sir Robert Chote
Chair
UK Statistics Authority
July 2025
Chief Executive’s report
I am pleased to present the UK Statistics Authority’s Annual Report and Accounts for the financial year ending March 2025. This report meets our statutory obligations and provides accountability and transparency for our use of public resource over the previous 12-month period. In addition, the Annual Report and Accounts (ARA) provides us, as an organisation, an opportunity to reflect on both the progress we have made across the last year, and the difficulties we have faced as an organisation to produce consistently high quality and trustworthy outputs.
The last 12 months have been a challenging period for our core economic statistics users, and I recognise that the ongoing disruption whilst we pursue systemic recovery continues to impact them. Going forward, our learning from error and outlook of being more responsive to our users, coupled with the tightening fiscal environment and our Spending Review settlement, necessitates that we focus our activity on our core objective of providing high-quality economic and population statistics, without sacrificing the sustainability of our operations. It is vital that we recover and restore confidence in our work, and we commit to a relentless pursuit of this aim.
Our ongoing commitment to updating our processes is underlined by our key deliverables under the ARIES (Ambitious, Radical, Inclusive Economic Statistics) programme, which concluded on 31 March 2025. ARIES delivered an end-to-end improvement to our Research and Development (R&D) statistics, carried out the groundwork to enable improved financial sector data, allowing the UK to meet its international commitments to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and delivered many additional improvements such as a first iteration of a new Local Government Statistical pipeline.
Alongside the prioritised investment and continuous improvement in our core statistics, our transformation work is continuing at pace. Transforming our labour market statistics continues to be our highest priority, given their importance for economic decision making. We are progressing work towards a readiness assessment in collaboration with main users in July 2026, ahead of transitioning our published headline labour market statistics from November 2026. As part of our prices transformation, scanner data will be incorporated into our headline consumer price statistics from March 2026. This will provide new levels of detail about what groceries are being bought, how prices are changing and what this means for people’s shopping habits. Over the coming months, I also look forward to the introduction of further improvements to our migration statistics, including new methods for estimating British Nationals and the establishment of a new National Statistician’s Migration Advisory Panel.
With regards to our population and migration statistics, the past year saw progress in producing more timely, high-quality statistics using administrative data, including further development of our admin-based population estimates. While our vision remains to create a sustainable and resilient population statistics system that uses the best available data sources, we recognise the current limitations in the quality and availability of data flows across the public sector that create challenges, including with coverage. Through our consultation and extensive engagement with stakeholders, users and producers of statistics alike, including at the inaugural UK Statistics Assembly in January 2025, it was clear that the decennial census remains of enormous value. At the same time, we heard enthusiasm for the improvements to quality, frequency and range of outputs we can see by making greater use of administrative data. As a result, our recommendation, published on 17 June 2025, proposed that the Government commissions the ONS to conduct a questionnaire-based census asked of the whole population in 2031, supported by the growing power of administrative data and new technologies. This will be aided by the UK and Welsh Governments committing to ensure regular and reliable data flows. The decision to call a mandatory census in 2031 in England and Wales rests with government ministers. While we await a response, should the Government accept our recommendation, activity will build quickly with a public consultation on census topics planned for the autumn.
In March 2025, the Authority Board jointly commissioned with the Cabinet Office, Sir Robert Devereux to undertake a short but wide-ranging independent review of the performance and culture of the ONS. Sir Robert’s recommendations were published on 26 June 2025 alongside the joint response from The Authority and Cabinet Office who both accepted the findings and conclusions. I fully acknowledge the issues highlighted in the review and remain committed to implementing the recommendations. In addition to our published Strategic Business Plan for 2025/26 which provided a renewed focus on our core economic and population statistics, we published, on 26 June 2025, a Plan for Economic Statistics that details how we currently assess the quality of our core statistics, what we are doing to address issues and risks, and how we are putting the right foundations in place for the future to restore confidence and improve the quality of our outputs.
Taken together with our Surveys Improvement and Enhancement Plan for Economic Statistics these plans reflect how we will be prioritising our most critical statistics and building a more resilient statistical system. Given the tight fiscal environment, difficult decisions have been made, and will continue to be necessary, to prioritise activity, identify efficiency savings and reallocate resources. It will be integral to our success as a National Statistical Institute that these plans and their consequential changes, are implemented successfully across the coming year and beyond. Reflecting on this recent period, despite our many challenges, I am proud of the incredible work taking place across the organisation as we deliver statistics for the public good and refocus our commitment and efforts. We are fortunate to have many talented analysts, working alongside expert colleagues throughout the ONS, and with the right focus and leadership we can achieve the right level of recovery our users need.
Emma Rourke
Acting National Statistician
UK Statistics Authority
July 2025