The UK’s official statistics agency on Friday paused the publication of two price indices used to help calculate GDP figures, the latest admission of flawed data at the beleaguered authority.
The Office for National Statistics said it had found flaws in its producer price indices and services producer price indices, which provide an indication of price pressures within business supply chains.
“During work to improve the systems used to create the producer price index (PPI) and the services producer price indices (SPPI), our quality assurance identified a problem with the chain-linking methods used to calculate these indices,” said the ONS.
“As a consequence, we are pausing the publication of PPI and SPPI data, which was next due on 26 March, while we rectify this issue,” it added.
The detailed price data are used within GDP calculations. The ONS said the issues may lead to revisions to estimates for services, production and construction particularly likely in 2022 and 2023 — though the issues with the data stretch as far back as 2008.
“At an aggregate level for GDP, these revisions should be offsetting to an extent, while taken alongside regular data deliveries,” stated the ONS.
“Early indications suggest that there will not be a notable change in the recent economic trends seen in these data, but we will update users once more information becomes available,” it added.
This problem also affects some of the deflators used for both trade in goods and trade in services, including the import price indices and export price indices.
“Early analysis suggests that some goods export and import data from 2023 may be impacted, and some goods export data prior to 2014,” the ONS said.
The agency said it did not expect any changes to the publication timetable for monthly, quarterly or annual GDP. It also said headline consumer prices indices (CPI) and a broader inflation measure that includes housing costs, CPIH, were “completely unaffected”.
The announcement will fuel questions over the reliability of figures produced by the ONS after the agency postponed the publication of trade data earlier in the month and long-running problems with a key survey on the state of the labour market.
The collapse in response rates to the ONS labour force survey, which is not expected to be replaced until at least 2026, has left interest rate-setters without reliable employment data for almost 18 months.
