UK regulator gives thumbs down to household wealth statistics

UK Statistics Regulator Declares Household Wealth Data Unreliable

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's statistics regulator ruled on Friday that official data on how rich British households are can no longer be treated as reliable, in another blow to the Office for National Statistics.

The suspension of accredited status for the data by the Office for Statistics Regulation comes as the ONS is under investigation by the government over long-running problems with labour market data and follows a significant error in April's inflation data and the suspension of producer price figures.

"Declining response rates and a lack of investment have significantly impacted the quality of the survey data, which measures the financial wellbeing of households across Great Britain," the regulator said.

The most recent version of the wealth data, published in January, stated that the median British household had wealth of 293,700 pounds ($397,552), with the top 10% of households being worth at least 1.2 million pounds and the bottom 10% under 16,500 pounds.

The regulator said the survey, which began in 2006, had provided "crucial economic data on assets, savings, debt and retirement planning that informs state pension levels, academic research, and both monetary and fiscal policy development."

The regulator said it had given the ONS instructions on how to improve the data and expected a progress report in September.

Declining response rates lie at the heart of the problems with the ONS' Labour Force Survey - used to calculate the unemployment rate and inactivity in the labour force, key data points for the government and the Bank of England.

The BoE and the regulator have said the fall in responses to the often lengthy ONS surveys appeared sharper than in other countries which collect similar data.

($1 = 0.7388 pounds)

(Reporting by David Milliken; editing by William James)