The panel welcomed the decision to publish revisions before the main statistics.
The panel agrees with ONS that including those with Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in LTIM and estimating those who overstay their visa are priorities in the short term. It was content with ONS’ other short-term research priorities, including research on international temporary mobility; whether any individuals on 6-month non-visa nationals meet the definition of LTIM; and continuing research on British Nationals.
In the medium term, the panel noted the need for reliable data in the following areas: a) accurate population stocks estimates, by country of birth and current (updated) nationality where stocks and flows should be produced using independent methods that can then be reconciled; b) more accurate estimates of departures and overstaying, both in order to improve LTIM estimates and in its own right; c) good data on labour market outcomes of migrants, including by immigration status (for example, data equivalent to Migrant Journey, incorporating economic activity data); and d) better estimates on the characteristics and outcomes of migrants at the sub national level.
Over the long-term the panel noted that the integration of data sources across government would be crucial to producing relevant statistics on international migration in the future.
The panel agreed that the ONS should move to publishing the additional analysis on international student migration annually to focus resources on areas where existing statistics are not available.
The panel recommended that ONS keep the current publication schedule for Long Term International Migration estimates to align with other immigration publications and ensure timely data for population estimates, accepting this may create an increased risk of publication delays or lower-quality provisional estimates due to late delivery of data from other government departments.
Introduction
The Chair opened the panel meeting and welcomed members
The chair noted that there were no outstanding actions from the previous meeting.
Key messages from Methodological Assurance Review Panel: Migration statistics sub-group
The Methodological Assurance Review Panel: Migration Statistics sub-group has not met since the last report.
Key messages were noted from the Migration Statistics User Group
The Migration Statistics User Group reported that November’s release of long-term international migration largely met their needs.
The group agreed strongly that releasing revisions to previous data points ahead of new data points was helpful.
The group welcomed an update from the Home Office on the latest data including small boat arrivals, asylum claims and decisions, returns data and visa data and recognised the new statistics being made available.
There was a strong indication that ONS analysis on migrant workers would be useful.
There were specific interests highlighted on additional analysis on British national migrants as well as characteristics of international migrants which is needed for understanding the economic impacts of migration.
The group advised that caution must be applied to minimise misinterpretation when communicating uncertainty measures.
When discussing priorities for the ONS research plan, an exercise showed three topics that were considered by the group as high priority. These were more detailed breakdowns for local-level estimates, developing estimates of flows through the Common Travel Area, and improvements to accuracy when assigning migrants to geographies within the UK.
Implementing Improvements in November 2025
The panel reflected on the process of implementing methods changes for the November 2025 Long-Term International Migration estimates. It was noted that the full process for implementing changes for November 2025 preceded the NSAP and that the NSAP was involved from July 2025 when it was set up.
The group were content with the process of reviewing the stages of methods development enabling the provision of a recommendation to the National Statistician.
International Migration Statistics – Strategy
The ONS recognised a new chapter for migration statistics. During 2025, the IPS was no longer used to produce migration statistics, the 2031 Census was announced and the current ONS business planning round made this a good time to think about the strategy for international migration and invited the group to share views on priorities in the short, medium and long term.
The group agreed that better data integration across government should be an overarching priority in the medium and long-term.
The group agreed estimates of migration population stocks are important as well as migration flows. It was noted that having stocks and flows that are produced using independent methods and then reconciled will improve the overall picture of international migration.
In the short and medium term, having a strategy for how planned revisions are handled to help build trust and confidence in the statistics. Alongside this is ensuring greater stability between provisional and updated estimates. The group acknowledged that having the revisions published in advance of the LTIM bulletin helps to do this.
The group mentioned working towards further breakdowns of migration estimates that would be useful, such as age and sex, and also noted the importance of estimates by both nationality and country of birth noting the different uses for each of these. This also includes the labour market outcomes of migrants and the characteristics and outcomes of migrants at the sub-national level.
ONS noted these suggestions and that more details on plans will be published once agreed.
Approach to reason for migration
ONS provides reason for migration breakdowns in the LTIM bulletin. Alongside this there is also a regular publication looking at International Students providing additional insights on what students do after arrival. This also includes data from HESA including what courses students are on.
ONS is looking at publishing this additional analysis 3 months after the LTIM bulletin, as was done in November 2025 and February 2026. It was also proposed that the publications on international students be produced annually instead of biannually. This would enable ONS to produce similar publications for those on Work visas.
The panel agreed that less frequent publication of the additional students publication would be sensible to allow focus on additional insights and ONS will seek user feedback and consult with key stakeholders about this recommendation.
Timing of international migration releases
Historically LTIM estimates are published the last week in November and the last week in May. This was in line with the availability of IPS data and was coordinated with government departments who also published migration related statistics. Now ONS has moved to using admin data to estimate international migration there have been challenges in getting the admin data on time and to the required quality. Work with the Home Office and Department for Work and Pensions has taken place to identify solutions to overcome these challenges to avoid delays in publication.
The ONS explained to the panel that admin data are huge datasets that need large amounts of manipulation to create them. For example, the Department for Work and Pensions don’t own all the data that are used to create RAPID. Therefore, they are also waiting for data to be supplied from other government departments, the current timescales for essential quality assurance have little contingency to accommodate delays in the supply of data.
It was also noted that the ONS currently publish alongside other releases of migration related data such as those published by the Home Office.
ONS asked the panel for views on whether the established timetable should continue but with a greater risk of delay, or whether additional contingency time should be built in by moving the publication dates later.
The panel recommended that ONS keep the current publication schedule for Long Term International Migration estimates in order to align with other immigration publications and ensure timely data for population estimates, accepting that this may create a greater risk of publication delays where ONS requires data from other government departments.
May publication dates are more important as they feed into the population statistics (Mid year estimates) and the migration element is the last element to feed in. Population statistics are very important to a wide range of users, and so the timings for these need to be considered.
