Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Labour Market Statistics minutes: March 2026

Attendees

The Chair opened the meeting, welcomed attendees, and highlighted the agenda covering the Transformed Labour force Survey (TLFS) and wider labour market statistics.

ONS provided an update on progress against the 2025/26 milestones across the labour market portfolio.
TLFS/LFS improvements included an increased sample size and interviewer capacity for LFS.
Workforce Jobs moved off legacy systems.
Productivity statistics migrated off legacy software and had improved methods for quarterly labour productivity.
ASHE improvements included extended use of electronic data collection in 2025, (further extension under consideration for 2026), table production system migrated to a new platform and wider system/methods re-platforming being sequenced as part of a complete process review.
Administrative data integration includes Matching TLFS and LFS to understand potential employment related non-response bias and developing a linked employer–employee database.
Panel members asked for clarification on use of administrative data and impacts for 2026 ASHE delivery. ONS confirmed ongoing work on electronic collection options and system modernisation.

ONS presented findings on the sustained decline in UK household survey response rates.
UK performance has worsened relative to other countries over the past decade.
Declines are driven by societal trends, survey design, policy (voluntary v mandatory), operational factors.
ONS has actions underway and will provide updates to the Panel when available.
The Panel discussion covered quantifying drivers of UK–international differences, exploring focused country case studies, and risks/benefits of survey mandation. Members highlighted the importance of understanding subgroup nonresponse patterns.
ONS noted the International Monetary Fund report ‘Eroding Participation on Labour Force Surveys: Evidence, Drivers and Solutions’ and will forward the report to the Panel.

ONS presented updates on the website and content transformation programme and the improvement of labour market statistical outputs.
The website and content transformation programme is a user first, evidence-based model, which follows the principles of knowing users and their needs, everything in the right place and smarter, not more content.
The current structure of Labour Market bulletins will benefit from change, allowing users to extract information quickly, understand the story and any impact of quality caveats.
A Labour Market theme day proposal was presented whereby;
1. Overview, Employment, Average Weekly Earnings, Vacancies & Jobs, Public Sector Employment bulletins are consolidated into a single output.
2. PAYE RTI and Labour Market in the Regions remain separate releases.
Panel members were shown a demonstration of the new statistical article.
The Panel were supportive of the planned changes and discussed the narrative for regional bulletins, pdf data tables and the need for prominent dataset links and quality messages.

ONS outlined their joint work with NISRA ahead of NISRA’s potential move to their transformed Labour Market Survey before the ONS TLFS transition.
ONS and NISRA have worked together to maintain the current publication timeline.
To mitigate any risks of delay to the publication timeline a list of critical tables for the monthly releases was presented to the Panel.
Panel members broadly agreed the prioritisation was sensible and agreed to provide further feedback by the end of March.

ONS provided updates on progress within the TLFS programme and a look-ahead for potential deep-dive topics and dates, over the coming months.
The Panel were offered an invitation to attend the deep-dives.

ONS gave the Panel an overview of the TLFS scenario workshop that had recently taken place with external stakeholders, noting it was a well-attended, useful stock take of the current position and reconfirmed the variety of stakeholder views on priorities and risk appetite.

ONS gave an overview of TLFS performance, noting it was performing well in some areas, yet below expectations for achieved sample size.
ONS is continuing to monitor and identify potential solutions to improve response.

ONS confirmed the next Labour Market Transformation update article is planned for publication late March/early April and potential TLFS topics include an update on the improved design, household, socioeconomic and local data, UK data coherence, readiness assessments and the transition timeline.
The article will also include updates on wider Labour Market statistics including LFS, APS and administrative data.
ONS informed the Panel of its proposal to update the external message regarding TLFS transition.
Panel members supported clearer communication of uncertainty, with messaging contextualising the substantial progress made.

ONS gave an update on APS prioritisation and transition.
Following ONS prioritisation work, the APS continues with a reduced boost.
User engagement highlights the importance of annual APS data for users and TLFS Plus readiness for transition.
ONS plan to undertake early analysis of six-month TLFS Core data, in addition to annual Plus data, to have early insight prior to transition.
APS quality updates scheduled for March/April and June 2026.
The Panel discussed APS coverage of migrants by nationality and country of birth.

Please note: AI has been involved in the production of this content.