Advisory Panel on Consumer Prices (Stakeholder) minutes: 24 April 2026

Published:

Advisory Panel on Consumer Prices (Stakeholder) presentation slides 24 April 2026 (228 KB) APCP-S(26)02 Proposals to produce and publish seasonally adjusted CPI & CPIH (288 KB) APCP-S(26)03 HCIs (239 KB) APCP-S(26)04 Stakeholder Panel future discussion plan (182 KB)

Attendees

Members in attendance

  • Professor Jonathan Haskel (Chair)
  • Jonathan Camfield (Lane Clark & Peacock)
  • Richard Gibson (Barnett Waddingham)    
  • Ashwin Kumar (Manchester Metropolitan University)
  • Jill Leyland (Royal Statistical Society) 
  • Ellie Price (His Majesty’s Treasury)
  • James Smith (Resolution Foundation)
  • Geoff Tily (TUC)
  • Rupert de Vincent-Humphries (Bank of England)

ONS Secretariat

  • Antonio Codiglione

Presenters

  • David Beckett
  • Michael Hardie
  • Luke Michaelides
  • Chris Payne
  • Kevin Sharp
  • Stefan Ubovic

ONS observers

  • James Benford
  • Grant Fitzner

Minutes

1. Introduction

  1. Jonathan Haskel (the Chair) welcomed everyone to the Stakeholder Panel meeting.
  2. The minutes from the last Stakeholder Panel meeting (13 February) were agreed by the Panel.
  3. Stefan Ubovic gave an update on action point 46, explaining that his team still intend to draft and circulate a copy of the public-facing paper on CPI intensity to the Stakeholder Panel but that competing priorities had meant that it hadn’t been possible to draft the paper.
  4. David Beckett (DB) gave an update on action point 48, explaining that due to annual leave commitments the paper on whether the stock-based methodological approach in PIPR is consistent with calculating price indices using the acquisition approach will be tabled later this year.
  5. DB gave an update on action 57, explaining that the Prices Division Artificial Intelligence Working Group were looking at summarising the requests that come into the CPI mailbox and that an update on progress will be given at the next Panel.   
  6. The Chair and Grant Fitzner (GF) gave an update on action point 61, explaining that there are different options in terms of amending the Stakeholder Panel’s remit and terms of reference to reflect the greater focus on business prices but that a paper would be tabled at the July Panel to summarise the options and allow for discussion.
  7. DB gave an update on action point 62, explaining that a paper on contingency planning around the potential loss of scanner data had last been discussed in January 2023 and that an updated paper on this topic would be tabled for the next Stakeholder Panel.
  8. DB gave an update on action point 65, explaining that a paper summarising which parts of the production process have been transitioned away from legacy systems and which parts remain on legacy systems would be tabled for the next Stakeholder Panel.
  9. DB gave an update on action point 63, explaining that the plan was for a further paper on communicating the role of CPIH to be taken to the Joint Panel in September.
  10. The Chair noted that the secretariat had been corresponding with members of the Panel on actions points 64 and 66 in relation to the statistics published in the detailed tables on release day. It was agreed that a paper would be brought to the July Panel after the secretariat had spoken further with Panel members and other stakeholders.
  11. DB gave an update on action point 68, explaining that he had fed back the Panel’s view that a modified bar chart should be used in the new bulletin, rather than the proposed waterfall charts. DB noted that he’d continue to work with Publishing on the modified bar chart and would provide an update at the next Panel.
  12. DB gave an update on action point 69, explaining that it had not been necessary for the Chair to write a letter to object to the decision to remove the facility to create a pdf of the bulletin and key tables on the website. DB further explained that nothing would change until November and that in November users would be able to click a button to download summary tables only, and not the bulletin itself.

Action:

ONS to table a paper on contingency planning around the potential loss of scanner data at the July 2026 Panel.

Action:

ONS to table a paper for discussion at the July 2026 Panel which summarises which parts of the production process have been transitioned away from legacy systems and which parts remain on legacy systems.

Action:

ONS to table a paper for discussion at the July 2026 Panel that summarises thoughts from Panel members and other stakeholders on what metrics should be published each month in the detailed tables.

Action:

David Beckett to provide a further update at the July Panel on progress on the type of chart to be used in the new statistical bulletin.  

2. Basket Quality Review

  1. Chris Payne and Stefan Ubovic updated the Panel on progress on the high and medium priorities in the development plan, the internal Prices Prioritisation Board and the ‘deep dive’ work.
  2. A discussion was held on the ONS’s approach in terms of using the Living Costs and Food Survey and extent to which its use was lagged.
  3. Mike Hardie (MH) gave an update on the Prioritisation Framework and how the Prioritisation Board and Delivery Group were being used to listen to the views of others while ensuring workstreams were meeting the milestones that had been set. MH then gave an update on the highest-ranked risks relating to consumer prices on the Risk Register.  

Action:

ONS to provide to provide a note which signposts Panel members to further details on use of the Living Costs and Food survey in price statistics.

3. Scanner data launch reflections

  1. Mike Hardie (MH) welcome successful introduction of grocery scanner data into the CPI/CPIH datasets and noted that scanner data will be included in the HCI release on 28 May.
  2. MH explained that the Consumer Prices Indices Technical Manual had been replaced by Consumer Prices Indices Technical Guidance, that changes had been made to the published microdata and that regional consumption segment indices and counts of indicator market codes were now published.
  3. The Chair and the Panel commended the ONS for their work in successfully delivering scanner data into their statistics.
  4. The Panel noted that ONS were looking to use the scanner data within the wider National Accounts but that it was unlikely that it would be possible for the data to be shared on the Secure Research Service.

4. Household Costs Indices

  1. Luke Michaelides (LM) spoke to the tabled paper on the revisions and correction of errors policy for HCIs. LM explained that while revisions were currently considered on a case-by-case basis, after accreditation the proposal was for revisions to occur only in exceptional circumstances, closely in line with the policy for CPI and CPIH.
  2. The Panel asked for further clarification on why it was decided that the HCI revisions policy would follow the same approach as CPI and CPIH rather than the approach followed with RPI, where revisions are never made. The Panel also asked for consideration to be given on the extent to which the intended use of each of the indices affects this choice.
  3. LM explained that correction of errors in HCIs will be similar to the CPI/CPIH policy in the sense that they won’t happen retrospectively and will have the same threshold of 0.1 percentage points for a correction notice to be published. The Panel endorsed this proposal.
  4. LM gave a general development on HCIs, detailing that ONS were looking at improvements for stamp duty, and that lessons had been learned from the work on pooling done as part of the Northern Ireland CPI work.
  5. LM then explained that the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) were carrying out a compliance review and invited anyone from the Panel that wished to contribute to the review to get in touch with him.

Action:

Luke Michaelides to provide further information at the July Panel’s HCI update on the reasoning behind the proposed HCIs revisions policy, why it follows CPI/CPIH rather than RPI, and how the intended use of HCIs factored into this. Related to this, the Panel asked for the ONS to consider their vision of the prices landscape in terms of how the different indices will be used in terms of uprating.  

5. Seasonally-adjusted CPI

  1. Kevin Sharp (KP) spoke to the tabled paper before there was discussion on some of the issues by the Panel.
  2. Almost all of the Panel agreed that adding two new tables to the consumer price inflation tables that are published each month was the most suitable approach, while it was also agreed that the bulletin should not yet be amended to reflect the existence of seasonally-adjusted CPI and CPIH. The Panel also stressed the important of communicating the existence of the tables on the run up to the first time they’re published.
  3. The Panel agreed that the most suitable approach would be to revise previously-published data annually after each modelling round rather than after each monthly publication.
  4. The Panel also agreed that there would be a continuous timeseries rather than there being three split modelling periods between 1988 and 2025 and that there shouldn’t be a revisions window.
  5. The Panel recommended that division 4 (housing and household services) should not be removed from the scope of seasonal adjustment because although it contains certain policy-driven prices, it also contains items that are predominantly driven by market forces. The Panel agreed regressors should be added to relevant time series when there are known policy timings that are likely to result in outliers and level shifts.
  6. The Panel noted the earlier discussion on the possibility of ONS publishing more granular and more regular contribution figures in the publication tables which led them to prefer indirect adjustment to be used in seasonal adjustment because of its additive nature.

Action:

ONS to bring back a paper to update the Panel on decisions and progress in terms of the issues discussed in the seasonally-adjusted CPI/CPIH paper tabled at the April 2026 meeting.

6. Future discussion plan

  1.  David Beckett (DB) spoke to the tabled paper, summarising what was proposed for discussion over the next few Panels.
  2. The Chair requested for information to be provided or a paper to be written on the workflow of the production of consumer price statistics so the Panel can better understand each of the stages and how they feed into them.
  3. The Chair requested that a paper is written on the measurement of high-tech goods because of the difficult conceptual issues in this area and because they will possess an increasingly large weight in the basket of goods and services.
  4. The Panel noted that methodological improvements to HCIs shouldn’t be limited to the areas required for accreditation and that one particular area of interest relates to the possibility of publishing HCIs on a monthly basis. As such, the Panel requested an update on this at a future Panel.
  5. The Panel noted that ONS had done some helpful analysis around 2023 on the distributional consequences of inflation. The Panel further noted that it may be helpful for the Panel to consider what further distributional analysis of inflation would be helpful or perhaps some kind of geographical analysis, particularly because of the recent price shock following the war in the Middle East.

7. Any other business and summary

  1. The Chair thanked the Panel members and presenters for their contributions.