UK reportedly set to appoint senior official to deal with shortcomings at the ONS

It’s been well over a year already that the ONS has been struggling to produce accurate data surrounding the UK labour market, inflation, and trade for the most part. For some context: There are still issues plaguing labour market data transformation – ONS (July 2024)

Their latest slip up was with regards to the inflation numbers for April, which I highlighted here. And even after a year, they’ve not quite found a solution to the issue and so we’re seeing the UK government looking to intervene now.

Reuters is reporting that a commission set up in reviewing the ONS is going to be recommending the statistics office to split the top job in order to create a second role focused on overseeing the running of the organisation. And that role will be filled by a senior civil servant, with the government expected to accept the recommendation.

Since last year already, the BOE has also not been shy in criticising the ONS for data inaccuracies which has made their job tougher to navigate. So, we’ll have to wait to see how this will take effect and how quickly things will turn around.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.