UK Statistics Office Appoints Bank of England Official for Data Revamp
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's statistics office has hired a Bank of England official to lead its push to improve its economic data after a string of failures.
The Office for National Statistics said James Benford would become its new director general for the Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics Group (ESEG) from August 4.
"He will bolster the ONS's executive team at a crucial time as the organisation progresses work to renew confidence in its economic statistics," the agency said.
Benford is currently the BoE's executive director for data and analytics transformation and its chief data officer. He previously worked at the finance ministry and was private secretary to former BoE governor Mark Carney and current governor Andrew Bailey.
In a question-and-answer session with lawmakers on Tuesday, Bailey said the lack of reliable statistics from the ONS remained a problem for the BoE.
In April, the ONS said it would cut back some operations in order to focus on core economic and population figures in the face of tight funding.
In 2023, it detected problems with the response rates to its Labour Force Survey (LFS), which is used to calculate Britain's unemployment rate and other key measures of the jobs market. An improved version of that survey might be released in 2026 or possibly only in 2027.
Inflation, trade and producer price data have also suffered from errors or methodology problems in recent months.
"I am excited to work with the talented and dedicated teams at the ONS to strengthen the quality and relevance of statistics - and to rebuild public trust in the data that informs so many critical decisions," Benford said in a statement.
An investigation into the ONS, commissioned in April by the Cabinet Office and the Statistics Authority regulator, is likely to be published in the coming weeks.
(Writing by William Schomberg, editing by Andy Bruce)
