{"id":118488,"date":"2025-09-06T11:33:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T11:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/118488\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T11:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T11:33:11","slug":"office-for-national-statistics-in-crisis-after-another-data-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/118488\/","title":{"rendered":"Office for National Statistics in crisis after another data error"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JOHN-PAUL FORD ROJAS, DEPUTY BUSINESS EDITOR<\/a> <\/a> <\/p>\n

Updated: 06:36 EDT, 6 September 2025 <\/p>\n

The crisis-hit Office for National Statistics apologised yesterday as it revealed its latest blunder \u2013 admitting that it had overestimated retail sales this year.<\/p>\n

July’s figures were delayed for two weeks after an error in compiling them was identified, prompting revisions to mistakes in previous months’ figures.<\/p>\n

The revisions suggested retail sales grew by 1.1 per cent over the first half of the year rather than 1.7 per cent as previously calculated.<\/p>\n

Britain’s number-crunching agency is already under enormous pressure after admitting to mistakes in unemployment and inflation<\/a> data.<\/p>\n

The chronic problems at the ONS have created major frustrations for ministers and the Bank of England trying to assess the state of the economy.<\/p>\n

Retail sales figures for July<\/a> \u2013 which showed a 0.6 per cent increase \u2013 were better than expected.<\/p>\n

\"Crisis-hit: <\/p>\n

Crisis-hit: The Office for National Statistics has\u00a0admitted that it had overestimated retail sales this year<\/p>\n

They were supposed to have been released two weeks earlier but were delayed after the ONS admitted to a mistake in how it adjusts figures to account for seasonal variations such as when Easter falls each year.<\/p>\n

James Benford, the ONS’s director general of economic statistics, said: ‘I apologise for the delay to this release and for the errors in how we have been seasonally adjusting these data.’<\/p>\n

The official retail sales figures have long attracted scorn among analysts, with independent expert Nick Bubb deriding the data as coming from ‘planet ONS’.<\/p>\n

But it is ONS labour market figures that have come under particular scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Jobs figures are critical to the Bank of England in helping to decide whether it needs to cut interest rates<\/a> as the economy stutters or leave them higher for longer if it is threatening to overheat.<\/p>\n

Back in 2023, Bank governor Andrew Bailey said the official employment number could be out by as much as a million.<\/p>\n

Former Bank chief economist Andy Haldane has said it meant rate-setters were ‘flying in fog about the labour market’.<\/p>\n

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\n Office for National Statistics in crisis after another data error<\/p>\n