The head of the UK’s statistics body has blamed video doorbells and gated communities for adding to problems with jobs figures.
Sir Ian Diamond said the Office for National Statistics (ONS) needs more funding to overcome the issues – which have been causing major problems for the government and Bank of England.
Economists have been increasingly reluctant to put weight on the Labour Force Survey since the pandemic, with response rates plunging.
The employment, wages and inactivity data are used by Threadneedle Street to help set interest rates, as well as by government.
Last year the Resolution Foundation think-tank claimed nearly one million workers in Britain’s jobs market have been ‘lost’, suggesting the rate of UK unemployment and inactivity could be overstated.
Long-term sickness is thought to be the main reason why economic inactivity in the UK rose to a record 9.4million last year, about 22 per cent of working age adults.
Ian Diamond told MPs the Office for National Statistics (ONS) needs more funding to overcome the issues – which have been causing major problems for the government and Bank of England
The head of the UK’s statistics body has blamed video doorbells and gated communities for adding to problems with jobs figures (file picture)
Giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee, Sir Ian said it was taking twice the level of effort to get interviews compared with pre-pandemic.
He said that the ONS switched to phone interviewing during Covid, and since then it has found people have not returned to being ‘happy about coming into their houses to spend 45 minutes interviewing them’.
‘We’re finding very, very, very high levels of flat refusal,’ he said.
Sir Ian said people were simply ‘busy’ in many places, before identifying other reasons.
‘Our interviewers are finding it harder in some of the more advantaged areas where there are increasing gated communities, where you can’t get in,’ he said.
‘Some of the flat refusals come because of Ring doorbells which enable people to say… these are things that are happening to us day by day.’
The public body also needs better data sharing between Government departments to support its work, he said, adding that fewer people now have landlines and that a directory of people’s emails would help it reach more respondents.
When asked by MP Jeevun Sandher if that means the ONS needs ‘more cash and better data linkage’, Sir Ian said: ‘Yes.’
Sir Ian insisted that the ONS’s data around economic inactivity are reliable, despite the wider problems around the jobs survey, adding: ‘Please, please, please don’t think I am being complacent. I lie awake at night worrying about this the whole time.’
He said the ONS also uses data from payrolls and employers, as well as records of benefit claimants and NHS statistics, and has found its own findings ‘hang up pretty well’.
Nonetheless, he said he is optimistic of switching to a new and improved labour force survey in 2026, sooner than some warnings.
The ONS has previously said it could take until 2027 to fix the labour force data, but Sir Ian said he is ‘super hopeful’ that it will switch to a more reliable version in 2026.
He also outlined a range of issues around resourcing facing the organisation, after being forced to make savings which have resulted in it publishing less research.
Sir Ian said the ONS had been forced to make £34million in efficiencies in recent years, while also facing ‘a number of inflationary pressures’.
Those included an extra £1,500 cost-of-living payment for staff which cost the organisation about £9million, while pay rises for the last two years have been above the 2 per cent annual rise agreed at its last review in 2021.
The Labour Force Survey is used to produce the regular employment figures
When asked if that had affected ONS research, he said the extra costs and savings have ‘got to be found somewhere’.
Sir Ian said the body had reduced the number of ‘outputs’, which refers to the pieces of research it releases, and that ‘a number of stakeholders are pretty unhappy about that’.
However, he told MPs the ONS had not reduced the quality of the pieces of research it has continued doing.
‘I would much rather be very, very clear to all my colleagues that we are not going to reduce on quality. Quality is all that should matter to us,’ he said.
The ONS is facing the threat of strike action from staff over being asked to return to the office two days of the week.
