Unlock Digent Editor FREE
Roula Khalaf, editor of FT, chooses her favorite stories this weekly newsletter.
The key survey at the level of local employment operated by the agency for British statistics for harassment has significant shortcomings and restrictions, scientists warned and affected the ability of advice to anticipate future infrastructure needs.
According to analysts at Cambridge University, the annual business register and employment survey provided national statistics and provided employment survey results, which often underestimate business activities, especially in the latest sectors.
Survey judgment – which the government describes as “an official source of employees and employment estimates according to detailed geography and industry” – adds to quality issues Ons data.
The agency, which is reinforced for official reviews in its data in the next month, faced a growing criticism of politicians, and the Bank of England caused significant failure of fundamental labor market data at the end of 2023.
In the last two weeks, ONS has postponed key business data, has suspended the publication of two price indices that help calculate GDP, and was criticized by the Institute for Fiscal Studies to think about the “disordered economic reasoning” in the way she overestimated pension wealth.
BRES survey questions were raised in the analysis by the Center for Business Research at Cambridge University for Cambridge Arela, a local city expansion group that includes university, large technology and developers.
The research found that the annual BRES survey, which is based on 85,000 businesses throughout the UK, consistently underestimated the actual level of Cambridge employment when controlled against the company's level of company databases.
Between 2019 and 2022, the ONS survey recorded a 3.8 % increase in employment in the IT sector, but the data from the business research center found an increase of 8.3 %.
Andy Cosh, a senior researcher at CBR, said that several factors have led to problems with ons, including the reduction of samples to reduce costs and failure to check the results of postponement.
He added that the survey was also limited by the use of outdated standard industrial classification (SIC), which is necessary for international comparisons, but “very poor representation of the structure of the modern industry”, which was last updated in 2007.
“No data is perfect but we say we think we're much closer to the truth than you [the ONS] They are, ”Cosh added, noting that CBR wrote to the agency in December 2023 about survey issues after discussions that began five years earlier.
According to Ons, Bres the numbers “are widely used” by the departments of the local administration “to predict trends at work in their specific areas”.
Dan Thorp, CEO of Cambridge ARERE, said the government growth mission “risked, underwent” shortcomings in the official data used by advice, infrastructure providers and regulatory bodies for planning purposes.
“We see it first hand in Cambridge, where local employment measured ons consistently gives what is visible and measured on Earth,” he added.
Thorp quoted two recent infrastructure projects – Cambridge North and Cambridgeshire – which both experienced much more demand than planned soon after opening.
Local administration officials in Cambridgeshire said that while the planners used data for both projects, they commissioned separate research in drawing the current local local plan of the region due to “shortcomings” in the “real observed growth” in the region.
In its statement, the ONS stated that the Bres survey provided a “quality film” of local jobs, divided by industry and geography, but insisted that it is also clear about the restrictions of the survey with users.
“As we notice very clearly in our bulletin, the quality of samples estimates can deteriorate for smaller geographical areas, and this should be taken into account when evoking numbers,” the agency said.
Ons added that he is working to revise SIC in accordance with international requirements to ensure comparability of British data with data on other countries.
Visualization of Clara Murray data
