Committee

• Martin Weale (Chair, External)
• Jonathan Portes (King’s College London)
• Rebecca Riley (ESCoE)
• Nick Vaughan (Independent Economist)
• Pat O’Connor (Bank of England)
• Tom Orford (HMT)
• Paul Schreyer (External)
• Oliver de Groot (External)

Other attendees

• Richard Heys (ONS)
• Sanjiv Mahajan (ONS)
• Cliodhna Taylor (ONS)
• Kirsten Newton (NSO) (from Item 2 onwards)

Online

• Chris Davies (ONS)
• David Beckett (ONS)

Aplogies

• Jonathan Haskel

1. Approval of minutes from previous meeting

1. The minutes of the meeting of April 2026 were discussed and agreed.

2. Action Log

1. Martin Weale took the Committee through the outstanding actions from the last NSCASE meeting in April 2025. He noted that the actions relating to the implementation of statistical standards and guidelines should be removed from the Action log, since these now lie outside the remit of NSCASE.
2. The actions to be removed include those relating to the implementation of standards on Globalisation and Factory-less Production, the implementation of guidelines relating to Islamic Finance and an action relating to the implementation of SNA 2025.
3. Action: ONS secretariat to update the Action log appropriately.
4. Public Sector Output Quality Adjustments. With the potential migration of the action on Public Sector Output Quality Adjustments to the Advisory Panel on National Accounts (APONA), the Chair requested an update on the status of these adjustments.
5. Richard Heys gave an overview of where ONS is with these adjustments following the public sector productivity review and methodological improvements to policing and immigration metrics and the inclusion of data on income tax avoidance, tax credits and social security administration.
6. ONS is expecting three sets of quality adjustment values to be introduced into the National Accounts in 2027, 2028, 2029 respectively, with full implementation by 2030 in line with ONS’s SNA roadmap.
7. Progress with these adjustments will be reported in the annual Public Sector Productivity Bulletin. This will cover methodological improvements and feedback from users will be sought. ONS will not introduce the new sets of adjustments until work packages and estimates are fully completed and tested.
8. Richard Heys is due to speak to the OECD on its approach to quality adjustments. Paul Schreyer noted that OECD and Eurostat are keen to follow the approach taken by the UK and Australia, who have also been making quality adjustments to their public sector output estimates.
9. Martin Weale noted the role that NSCASE had played in supporting the derivation of these estimates and the influence that this approach has had with international partners.
10. Radio Spectrum – NSCASE secretariat to contact ONS to bring this issue back to NSCASE.
11. Contingent liabilities – Richard Heys recognised that we need to address this issue, but not at the July NSCASE meeting; manuals on financial and monetary statistics are potentially in development by the IMF and the Committee should wait for these to be published. In addition, the issue of contingent liabilities is due to be discussed under the SNA research agenda item proposed by the United Nations.

3. Terms of Reference

1. Cliodhna Taylor provided an update on the Terms of Reference. Since the circulation of the committee papers there have been several amendments from ONS colleagues and other committee members that need to be recognised in a revised version to be circulated ahead of the next meeting. First is the inclusion of a note outlining NSCASE reporting arrangements in the absence of a National Statistician and secondly to include an entry in the membership section reflecting the ex officio membership of the Director of ESCoE.
2. In addition, Cliodhna and other NSCASE members noted that the flow diagram describing the path of NSCASE advice to the National Statistician currently does not include an option for the National Statistician to reject NSCASE advice; this should be added.
3. Committee members noted that, in a situation where the National Statistician rejected NSCASE’s advice, NSCASE would have a reasonable expectation that the National Statistician would publish reasoned arguments to support the rejection of the committee’s advice.
4. Given their interest in Public Finance and Productivity statistics, the committee agreed that it would be sensible to invite the OBR to propose a member of NSCASE; if OBR agrees, this should be added to the Terms of Reference.
5. In cases where there is a seat on the Committee for a representative of an organisation, and that organisation wished to send multiple people to NSCASE (so that different people can speak to items in their respective areas of expertise), Cliodhna proposed that the Terms of Reference should clarify that, should the committee be forced into a position where it needed to vote on any decision, each organisation would be limited to one vote only regardless of the number of representatives present from that organisation.
6. Martin Weale noted that the Terms of Reference should record restrictions on substitutes attending the committee. In the case of NSCASE’s Chair and external experts, substitutes should not be permitted. In the case of the Chairs of technical groups, substitutes should be limited to Vice-Chairs, whilst substitutes for the ESCoE, Bank and Treasury positions will be permitted.
7. The Committee agreed to these changes and asked that the finalised Terms of Reference be presented to the July NSCASE meeting for approval.

Action:

ONS Secretariat to update and schedule updated Terms of Reference for the July 2026 meeting.

4. UNSC 2026

1. Richard Heys led the discussion on the review of the papers scheduled for discussion at the 57^th meeting of the UN statistical commission scheduled for the 3^rd to 6^th of March 2026.
2. The purpose of reviewing these papers is twofold. First, to provide NSCASE and ONS with the opportunity to feed into the statistical debate at UNSC and to influence and provide direction on the formulation of international statistical standards, and secondly to ensure that ONS UNSC delegates, in the absence of a National Statistician, are fully briefed before the Commission meets.
3. Richard noted that the work of NSCASE is now structured around reviewing the inputs into the UNSC meeting in January and reviewing the subsequent outputs from UNSC in July.
4. Several committee members noted that this year’s UNSC papers did not include a great deal of content and appeared to be “high level” in nature.
5. Richard suggested that there might be two reasons behind this. First, 2025 had been a heavy year for the UNSC with the review and sign off of the SNA, and second that updates to specific statistical manuals, covering for example, government financial statistics and the IMF’s Monetary and Financial statistics are not due until 2027 and 2028 respectively.
6. Nick Vaughan noted that NSCASE provided written comments to support the committee’s review of SNA 2025. He understood however, that it was verbal comments, provided in the margins at UNSC 2025, that had a greater impact than providing written comments in advance.
7. Kirsten Newton confirmed that ONS’s UNSC 2025 experiences supported that view. The UK, together with Australia, Canada and New Zealand had submitted a written joint position on the SNA 2025 to UNSC. However, written interventions do not form part of the record of the Commission and therefore it was essential that a verbal interventions on the floor was also made.
8. Kirsten noted that ONS would be contacting other NSIs ahead of UNSC 2026, to identify support for UK positions on key items and where necessary build a coalition for greater impact. These positions can then be raised jointly at the UNSC meeting.
9. Paul Schreyer noted that it was important for NSIs to form coalitions, particularly if those countries are from different parts of the world. For example, in 2024 several countries indicated difficulties measuring the concept of Marketing as an asset. Whilst many of the larger NSIs indicated that estimates could be produced, a sufficient collation spoke up at UNSC 2024 indicating that measuring Marketing Assets was challenging. For comparability purposes therefore Marketing as an asset was withdrawn from SNA 2025.
10. Considering these observations, Martin Weale asked members about the best way for NSCASE to approach the UNSC meeting and to influence the inputs and outputs of UNSC.
11. ONS representatives indicated that the best approach would be for NSCASE, following ONS’s consultation with other NSIs, to review briefing materials provided to the National Statistician, or their nominated deputy, prior to UNSC, on elements of the briefing relevant to NSCASE.
12. The committee discussed the optimal approach to reviewing the UNSC 2026 papers. Nick Vaughan and Richard Heys noted specific issues where the committee might choose to advise ONS on the potential for deviation from SNA 2025. These issues included the imputed return on non-market assets and the treatment of emission permits.
13. Since both these issues would be discussed in greater detail under separate agenda items, and given the lack of detail in the remainder of the UNSC papers, the committee agreed to postpone the discussion on the specific issues until later in the meeting, and review the relevance to NSCASE of each subject area covered by the UNSC 2026 papers.

Action:

ONS to speak to James Benford, the Deputy National Statistician attending this year’s UNSC, to check whether this would possible.

4a. UNSC 2026 Topics

1. Richard Heys gave an overview of the UNSC papers, noting the diverse nature of the subject areas covered, ranging from social and population statistics through to National Accounts, data governance and environmental and climate change statistics.
2. In view of the wide range of topic areas, Richard asked committee members which areas the committee thought were of most relevance to NSCASE.
3. The committee discussed the merits of including environment and climate change, Sustainable Development Goals and issues relating to data governance within NSCASE’s scope.
4. Given its integral role within SEEA, it was agreed that environmental statistics should remain within NSCASE’s scope. On SDGs, whilst acknowledging the wide coverage of indicators, some of which are outside of the remit of NSCASE, it was agreed that it would be useful to monitor developments of new indicators being developed to succeed SDGs. Similarly, it was agreed that there might be aspects of data governance relating to, for example, company identifiers, which would be within NSCASE’s remit.

Decision:

NSCASE agreed that ONS should review the relevance of papers relating to environmental statistics, SDG’s and data coverage, before asking NSCASE to review such content.

4b. National Accounts

1. The committee discussed the UNSC papers covering National Accounts. Much of the content of these papers related to the implementation of SNA 2025 and was therefore outside of NSCASE’s remit.
2. Richard Heys noted however, that as part of the UNSC briefing, NSCASE should raise conceptual issues as early as possible, such that the new National Accounts Committee (ApoNA) are able to consider issues of implementation and are able to brief accordingly.
3. Rebecca Riley noted that it was important that NSCASE recognised implementation issues. Whilst NSCASE might support the introduction of new statistical concepts to assist the measurement of UK economic activity, if NSCASE is aware there is no available data to measure the concept, or the data is too expensive, then any conceptual recommendation would be ineffective.
4. As part of the 2026 UNSC briefing, committee members noted their willingness to provide feedback on the SNA 2025 process.
5. Martin Weale noted that the consultation process had been too short, and as a result, several substantive comments made by NSCASE had not made it through to the SNA 2025 editor team.
6. Nick Vaughan and Michael Lyon supported these views, noting that the quality of the drafting and the demarcation between chapters had been poor. Nick enquired as to whether, as in previous years there was likely to be a review of the SNA process.
7. In response to a question from Nick Vaughan about a review of the SNA process, Kirsten Newton noted that, while UK and others had requested a review of the ISWGNA and AEG, the intention was not to criticise the process but focus on how any future updates could be improved.

Action:

As Chair of the new National Accounts Committee, Nick Vaughan agreed to bring any such implementation issues back to NSCASE as appropriate.

4c. SEEA Framework

1. Richard Heys introduced the UNSC papers on Environmental Economic Accounting including updates to the SEEA Framework.
2. SEEA is a complex framework like the SNA, as it supports various accounts around its centre. Developments in its key standards are directly reflected in SEEA’s research agenda.
3. Martin Weale noted that there was little coverage of prices within the SEEA framework, perhaps implying a zero cost for emissions. Martin suggested that NSCASE would want further detail from UNSC on how measuring the economic impact of emissions could be achieved using different price bases.
4. Paul Schreyer noted that it was difficult to compare SEEA and SNA, as the SNA used a proxy market price for measuring the activity of the ecosystem and then brings in the impacts of externalities thereafter.
5. There was also an issue with the SEEA asset boundary and whether the atmosphere is included as an asset. It is currently counter-intuitive that it is not. It would be easier if the atmosphere was included as an asset, allowing links to be drawn between SNA and SEEA.
6. Cliodhna Taylor noted that INSEE had completed a set of extended economic accounts where the atmosphere had been treated as an asset, and that ONS has used this as a basis for their own treatment of the atmosphere as an asset in the Inclusive Wealth and Income Accounts.
7. The Committee agreed that ONS UNSC representatives should seek to gain more information on the use of price estimates and the role of the atmosphere in the asset boundary at the forthcoming UNSC meeting in March.

4d. Well-Being

1. Richard Heys introduced the UNSC papers relating to Well-Being. The High Level Expert Group (HLEG) produced its interim report in November 2025 and the final report is expected in April 2026. The final report, including a new smaller set of metrics, across 7 domains, including for example, rights and democracy and material well being, will be discussed at UNSC.
2. Following discussion at UNSC, a new set of metrics and statistical outputs will be published by the HLEG in July 2026, the detail of which will be discussed at the July NSCASE meeting.
3. The Committee had an extended discussion on the contents of the interim report, covering the inclusion of specific variables in the measurement of well-being, such as education, through to the role of prices, the appropriate measure of output to be used in measurement (NDP vs GDP), examining Well-being through a capitals lens (i.e. grouping indicators under categories of produced capital, natural capital, social capital, human capital, etc.), the use of adjustments for inequality through to constructing similar measurements of Well-Being through the National Accounts Framework.
4. The Committee undertook to take this debate up again, following the publication of the final report and the new set of statistical outputs following UNSC 2026.

5. Emission permits

1. Richard Heys introduced the paper on Emission Permits and outlined the recent work of an IMF Task Team reviewing the most appropriate treatment of these permits.
2. Katherine Mills noted that ONS’s Ed Moskalenko had joined the IMF Task Team (convened Jan 2026). The US and China, however, had not participated in the Task Team and it remains unclear as to which way these countries might approach recording Emission Permits. It is unlikely that the IMF Task Team will meet again since it will finalise its work shortly. On completion of its work, it is anticipated that the Task Team will recommend that SNA guidance is the optimal approach to treating Emission Permits.
3. Proposals made by Eurostat to the IMF Task Team represent adaptations to prior proposals to deviate from SNA guidance (treat a permit as a financial asset) and which would now enable SNA guidance to be followed in the context of a pan-national scheme.
4. Katherine added that it was the intention for the IMF Government Finance Statistics Manual to follow SNA guidance.
5. Tom Orford confirmed it was HMT’s preference to follow SNA guidance and to prioritise international comparability over the elegance of method (non-financial non produced asset) most conceptually appropriate for emissions permits.
6. Paul Schreyer noted that he could see the attraction of treating emissions permits as non-financial assets, but it seemed the international debate was concluding in favour of following SNA guidance and maintaining international comparability. Paul stated that if there were a change in the future in relation to the treatment of the atmosphere as an asset, then this could trigger the reopening of the debate on Emission Permits.
7. Considering recent international discussions Martin Weale asked the committee if there were any objections to ONS’s proposal to continue to follow SNA guidance to treat Emission Permits as financial assets.
8. There were no objections to the proposal, and the committee agreed that it would take an update on Emission Permits in July 2026, following the write up and completion of the work of the IMF Task Team.

6. SNA Research Agenda

1. Sanjiv Mahajan provided the committee with an update on the SNA Research Agenda, from the perspective of one of the 2025 SNA supporting editors.
2. In keeping with the joint production of 2025 SNA and BPM 7, a common research agenda had been established for these two international statistical standards. The common research agenda was laid out in Annex 5 of 2025 SNA and covered over 40 topics across five categories, including: basic accounting rules, concept of income, financial instruments, non-financial assets and emerging issues. Some topic areas were unfinished work or new aspects from the 2008 SNA update.
3. Prioritisation of topics under the common research agenda was driven by the urgency and importance of a topic, the breadth and complexity of consequences arising from changes and the preparation already undertaken around a topic area.
4. The research agenda has four priority areas as follows.
5. Priority 1 – research on these topics should start as soon as possible (if it has not already) – these are topics where it is considered that resolving the research issue is critical for implementing the 2025 SNA. Examples include; calculating the net return to capital, loyalty programmes and gift cards and emission permits and classification of crypto assets.
6. Priority 2 – research on these topics should start in the next 1 – 2 years. Examples include; distorted transfer pricing, treatment of atmosphere as an asset and treatment of radio spectra
7. Priority 3 – research on these topics should start in the next 3 – 4 years. Examples include; treatment of rent, calculating real incomes and recording of unallocated gold accounts.
8. Priority 4 – longer-term research issues. Examples include, inclusion of international organisations, final consumption of corporations and measurement of neutral and real holding gains and losses.
9. During 2026 the International Macroeconomic Statistical Standards Update Task Team will develop co-ordinated research proposals, while the ISWGNA will assign lead agencies, define scope, timeframe and research modality and determine the involvement of the AEG.
10. The SNA research team collaborate with BOPCOM, SEEA, GFS and MFS on issues of joint interest. Joint task teams are appointed where appropriate to ensure consistency as well as incorporate country representatives to undertake related work.
11. Jonathan Portes inquired as to which bodies undertook the research laid out under the four priority areas.
12. Sanjiv stated that the research agenda would be managed by the ISWGNA and led by the AEG and individual countries would have the opportunity to contribute to the scope of the research through different task teams. Having this structure ensured that it was not just conceptual but implementation issues that were fed into the research work and that individual countries were sufficiently engaged to ensure that international comparability was not lost. In instances where there were insufficient countries taking the research work forward, those countries which wished to do so, had the option of using thematic accounts.
13. A follow up question was asked as to whether there were areas in these research topics that the ONS wanted to lead on and what arrangements were in place to ensure that the research was appropriately discussed before it was implemented?
14. Sanjiv noted that there were areas where ONS would want to take the lead / participate on research issues. It would also be imperative for the ONS to speak to its suppliers as well users before taking the work forward. If at the conclusion of the research, guidance notes were produced, and published for global consultation, then there would be opportunity for anyone interested in economic statistics to provide feedback on these notes.
15. The committee asked how the research list might be expanded such that it would be able to address the future needs of the SNA, and reflect rapid change in technologies. Sanjiv mentioned that this was not a static list; priorities could change as new technologies, processes and products evolved.
16. Rebecca Riley noted that sourcing new research ideas was not necessarily about reviewing existing statistical manuals, but engaging with, for instance, academics on some of the bigger picture issues relating to economic evolution. It was important to look at other initiatives, for instance, outside of ESCoE, to engage with academics and increase available research capacity. For example, when the ONS was working with US Bureau of Economic Analysis, were there opportunities to establish links with US academics to help on bigger picture and methodological issues. Sanjiv agreed that development of these possibilities made good sense to support the future research agenda.
17. Sanjiv noted that distinguishing between these different requirements might in part be addressed by reducing the time between each SNA update. The update between 2008 SNA and 2025 SNA has been too long, given the extent of economic changes that had taken place. It had, however, to be recognised that aiming to update the SNA maybe every five years would represent a significant resource requirement on NSIs and task teams.
18. Richard Heys noted the difficulty in distinguishing between short-term research requirements, which are aimed at helping to implement the SNA and the longer-term research requirements aimed at identifying the content of the next SNA. He stated that with a potential shortening in the SNA update cycle and with the development of other statistical frameworks, such as those for social and well-being statistics, a real effort was required to identify, say six top strategic research issues. These research issues would not only be required to address the needs of a shortened update cycle, but longer-term perspectives and the cross-overs between different statistical frameworks, such as between distributional accounts in National Accounts and Well-Being Measurement.
19. Nick Vaughan asked why measures of inequality were not included as Priority 1 in the research agenda, given their prominence in critiques of GDP and the SNA – but indicated his hesitancy of the SNA trying to tackle “well-being” in its entirety.
20. Sanjiv mentioned that GDP was just one key indicator in the national accounting framework, indicators such as GDP per capita or real adjusted household disposable income were better indicators of welfare than GDP. Furthermore, the role of distributional national accounts with quintile / decile splits had been better covered and linked in the 2025 SNA. This was a key area linking national accounts to issues like poverty, etc. and the UK was a world leader linked to the OECD and Eurostat work at the time.
21. Richard highlighted the need for SNA to stop being the answer to all questions, and the need for links between different manuals for different purposes.
22. The committee agreed to consider a further update on the common research agenda in July, following the 2026 UNSC.

7. SIC Framework

1. David Beckett took the Committee through the SIC Framework paper.
2. In 2024, NSCASE gave advice on the UK’s next Standard Industrial Classification (SIC), with NSCASE members emphasising the importance of maintaining comparability with the European Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community Activities (NACE) and global International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) frameworks.
3. NSCASE requested that any proposed differences between the new UK SIC and NACE at the 4-digit class level should be based on substantial user consultation, and any requests for deviation from the NACE classification rule be supported by robust economic rationale.
4. Following this advice, the NACE framework served as ONS’s starting point for creating the new UK SIC categories and stakeholders have now submitted their proposals. ONS were in the process of assessing every proposal but have prioritised and completed the assessment of proposals that would result in differences occurring between NACE and SIC at a 4-digit class level.
5. NSCASE requested a list of the 4-digit classes that differ from the NACE classification rule established in 2024. This paper explained the user need and logic behind these proposals before providing a comprehensive list of the accepted consultation proposals. The paper explained what ONS has done to fulfil NSCASE’s request that SIC remains internationally comparable.
6. Nick Vaughan asked about the detail provided in the Annex to the paper covering requests for deviation. It appeared that there are many groups where the text indicates “no change”, “update explanatory notes or no change”?
7. David confirmed that whilst there had been many requests to amend titles and explanatory notes around the different groups, the actual numeric classification structure had not been changed. For the purposes of international comparability and aggregation to higher levels of NACE and ISIC classification the changes to the text have no material impact. He noted that ONS would have rejected any proposals that wouldn’t allow ONS to do that.
8. Paul Schreyer noted his support for the paper, although disclosure issues should be borne in mind when further disaggregation below the 4-digit structure is considered. Paul was also in favour of the statistical balance arguments supporting the requests for classification changes from HMT and DBT. He further noted his support for the expansion of the financial sub-classes and suggested that ONS might look at how the US and other financial centres such as Singapore categorised their financial sectors.

Decision:

The committee confirmed its support for the small number of requests for deviation from the established 4 digit NACE classification rule, based on the detail of the paper and the re-assurance that aggregation from sub-classes below the 4 digit threshold would maintain international NACE and ISIC comparability.

8. Any other business

1. Date of next meeting is 7^th of July 2026.