Best of the Spectator Reality Check: Britain's stats have become dangerously unreliable
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Nov 11, 2025 Britain is grappling with a crisis of unreliable data, causing serious implications for government policy. The recent correction from the Office for National Statistics reveals deeper issues in public finance accuracy. Discussions highlight the troubling inconsistencies in the Labour Force Survey since COVID and errors in the 2021 census. With a rise in publications losing official status, the credibility of statistics is under threat, impacting critical decisions such as interest rates set by the Bank of England. What does this mean for the future?
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Data Quality Crisis Risks Policy Mistakes
- Michael Simmons warns that Britain's official statistics have declined in quality, causing real policy risks.
- Faulty data can mislead economic decisions and mask true fiscal positions like borrowing levels.
Employment Measures Are Diverging
- The Labour Force Survey now contradicts HMRC payroll data, showing employment rising while PAYE shows jobs falling.
- Declining survey response rates since COVID undermined LFS reliability and produced absurd swings in some industries.
Census Question Wording Caused Strange Results
- The 2021 census produced puzzling results like higher reported transgender rates in Newham than Brighton.
- Misunderstanding of a complex question by non-native English speakers likely drove the error and lost the official statistics badge.