Permanent Secretary’s foreword

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) enters the 2026–2029 period with a clear remit to secure the quality, timeliness and trustworthiness of the statistics that the UK depends on, while modernising how we work to improve productivity and reduce risks. Following a period of intense and public scrutiny, we have established momentum in making delivery improvements to our statistical outputs and learned more about the complexity and scale of the change still required. We have improved the quality of our surveys and core outputs, modernised complex statistical processes, and engaged internationally on new standards and emerging issues. Complex, manual processes, legacy technology constraints, skills and capacity gaps have held back the quality of some of our outputs and the pace of our improvement work, but we are learning from this and strengthening our capabilities, including redesigning our data governance and implementing a new digital framework.

Three outcomes underpin our ambition for what we aim to achieve by 2029: improved quality and trust in what we publish; statistics that are timely and relevant to national priorities; and an organisation that is efficient, resilient and adaptable. Achieving these outcomes means continuing to confront issues candidly, learning from errors, strengthening our systems, processes and skills, and sequencing complex change through our new ‘Waiting Room’ mechanism, so that we operate reliably, improve delivery predictability and deliver improvements successfully.

This plan sets out a practical and disciplined route forward, focused on three interdependent priorities. We will stabilise and improve the portfolio of our critical statistics, transparently prioritising quality and coherence across economic, population and social statistics. At the same time, we will strengthen the essential services of a modern National Statistics Institute (NSI), making our data easier to find, use and understand for Parliament, government, business and the public. Alongside this, we will build the capabilities that make improvement sustainable, investing in our people, culture, data and technology. To support progress across all three areas, we have narrowed the scope of our portfolio in the short term to enable us to succeed in our mission.

Over the last year we have already made real progress through our actions, noting that some substantial improvements have been underway for some time, including:

• Publishing our first Prices output using grocery scanner data, representing a step change in how we measure inflation, giving us a more accurate, detailed picture of what people are buying, how much they’re buying and how prices are changing.
• Reframing our monthly release for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to focus on the 3-month on 3-month change to reduce the emphasis on the more volatile monthly change.
• Business price surveys now being collected fully electronically, reducing operational risk and improving efficiency. Monthly Business Price Surveys performance is also approaching historic highs, getting close to the pre-pandemic peak.
• Ending our reliance on the International Passenger Survey (IPS) to produce estimates of migration into and out of the United Kingdom, now drawing fully on administrative data.
• Response levels on the Labour Force Survey (LFS) reaching levels similar to those seen pre-pandemic, with improvements in the quality and coherence of labour market statistics publicly recognised by the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility.
• All previously agreed major design changes to improve data quality now being implemented for the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS).
• Publishing the Census 2031 Strategy for England and Wales, setting out how we will deliver a ‘digital first’ census, making the best use of administrative data and modern technology, whilst enabling participation for those who are digitally excluded.
• Working collaboratively across the Government Statistical Service (GSS) to update the Standard Industrial Classifications to reflect a more modern economy, and to continue to respond to the Statistics Assembly recommendations, including on coherence, administrative data and data sharing, user engagement and in local, sub-national statistics.

We are also responding to the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence across the statistical system. In 2025/26, the ONS became one of the first national statistics institutes globally to deploy generative AI in the production of official statistics, through the in-house development of the ClassifAI application, that is now used to code labour market data by occupation and industry. Building on this, we are taking steps to ensure that ONS statistics are ‘AI-ready’, so they remain discoverable, verifiable and attributable when accessed through AI-enabled systems. This includes work with international partners, such as collaboration with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to explore the application of its StatGPT tool, to support the correct identification, interpretation and citation of official statistics.

Census 2031 is a key component of this plan. Following extensive engagement with users, government and stakeholders, and a recommendation endorsed by the UK Statistics Authority Board, HM Government commissioned the ONS to undertake a census in 2031 to provide a comprehensive, inclusive and trusted picture of the population of England and Wales at a time of significant demographic and economic change. While we will continue to expand the use of administrative data to improve population statistics between censuses, the Census remains essential to protecting quality, coverage and public confidence. Over the period of this plan, we will focus on mobilising capability, strengthening governance and progressing delivery in a controlled and disciplined way, recognising both the scale of the undertaking and its critical importance to the UK. A successful topic consultation will provide a clear evidence base of user needs, which will shape the design and delivery of outputs to ensure they are relevant, accessible and widely used. We will also develop modern dissemination approaches, improving how users find, understand and use census outputs, drawing on this evidence as well as our enhanced website capabilities.

This plan is intentionally outcome‑led and transparent. We will report progress openly, including where milestones are moved to ensure that resources, risk and benefits remain balanced. Our commitment is straightforward: dependable statistics, communicated clearly; rigorous stewardship of public money; and a modern, high‑performing ONS that supports better decision-making across the UK.

Darren Tierney
Permanent Secretary