Robert Wood, chief UK economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said all ONS data “must be suspect now”.
He said while the ONS had “done the right thing” to halt publication to double check the data rather than “sweeping the problem under the carpet”, the “mistakes are piling up”.
“There seems to be a serious problem at the ONS. Every odd datapoint now will raise the question, is this real or an ONS error?” Mr Wood said in a post on social media.
“This stuff really matters. The ONS need to get on top of this yesterday.”
In June, a critical government review said “deep seated” issues needed to be addressed at the ONS for the agency to “rebuild its reputation”.
The review said most of problems with data resulted from “inadequacies” in the way the agency plans and makes decisions. The ONS welcomed the report at the time and acknowledged the issues highlighted.
Last month Sir Robert Chote resigned as chair of the UK Statistics Authority, the body responsible for overseeing the ONS, saying new leadership was critical to restore confidence in the statistics produced by the body.
In a social media post former member of the Bank of England’s rate-setting committee, Andrew Sentance said the latest delay was a “total and utter shambles”.