The Financial Times has reported this morning that:
British people “lack a basic understanding” of economic statistics such as unemployment or the government's deficit, and at the same time mistrust official data, a hard-hitting report funded by the Office for National Statistics concluded on Wednesday.
The report, produced by the ONS's think-tank, the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence, found that a large proportion of the people they surveyed had little ability to judge how well the government or the UK economy was performing.
I am not in the slightest bit surprised by this.
To be kind to it, the Office for National Statistics website is dire. Finding even the most basic of information is exceptionally hard. To find an explanation for anything usually requires an understanding of the bizarre coding system used in the national accounts framework, which is ludicrous in itself, and incomprehensible to more than 1,000 people in the country, I suspect.
And the ONS does not always get its data right, either, which is a minor side issue.
But they're not alone in producing hopeless information. Until a couple of years ago the Treasury produced a useful monthly publication called te Treasury Pocketbook. They have now abandoned it. I know not why.
And the Office for Budget Responsibility replacement is not that good.
Is it really beyond the wit of the OS to publish a monthly pocketbook of economic data in an accessible form, with links to accessible explanation? I think that the minimum we should expect from them.
And when I say accessible form I mean that the data should be supplied in an appropriate format, by which I mean in money terms, or headcount terms, and so on, both real-time and inflation-adjusted plus per head of population when appropriate. The obsession of the ONS and OBR with reporting all data in percentage formats is absurd: that assume you know the value of the denominator and they never disclose what that is or where to find it and so, except for the deep insider, most information supplied by these organisations is meaningless. People - politicians, commentators, the public - want comprehensible data. And this may come as a shock to statisticians, but most people cannot comprehend percentages of any sort.
In the meantime, if you need to find data always start with the House of Commons Library - it's very often the most accessible source right now. But that's a damning indictment of the ONS, The Treasury and the OBR.
Unless, of course, the plan is to keep us in the dark. And maybe it is.
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Maybe? I’m surprised it’s a question, though I suspect you are being somewhat ‘generous’ in posing the question ….
Your final sentence says it all…. with the current Govt. I doubt if it’s part of any planning apart from ‘keep them in the dark’…… We have never made anything comprehensible in the past why should we start now…..
Judging my Peston’s tweet and article this morning – neither do the supposed expert financial journalists!
Peston was appalling this morning
Tell me about it! I’m often pulling my hair out trying to find even the most basic of data from the ONS site. Just a breakdown of age group numbers of UK citizens/nationals (as opposed to total population) in 2020 or even earlier years seems to be all but impossible. Although it’s easy to find the number of Greek Nationals in the UK in 2017!
Agreed
I don’t comment often, but I have to say that I really do agree that our national economic statistics (from the ONS) are a shambles and a nightmare to use. We could really do with something more like the US FRED data, which at least is free and easy to use and so gives people a common base with which to work. At the moment we seem to be too reliant on papers and analyses from various thinktanks or factions, which often have their own axes to grind (or produce nonsense numbers on the side of a bus).
It’s ridiculous that the St Louis Fed sometimes gas better data on the U.K. than the ONS
“ Is it really beyond the wit of the OS to publish a monthly pocketbook of economic data in an accessible form, with links to accessible explanation?“
Here you go, not difficult to find… https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/weekly-economic-indicators/pocket-databank-list-of-sources
And you think that is accessible?
Come on…..
It really is a mile short of what is required
And way short of what the Treasury used to do
I have just realised quite how many trolling identities you have had here
Bye!
Isn’t the ‘pocketbook’ data here?
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/weekly-economic-indicators/pocket-databank-list-of-sources
Not at all what I am imagining
That is links to data that most will still find incomprehensible
I am looking for a comprehensive easy to access publication with easy to read charts and live links to support data
The ONS, for which I briefly worked, does publish a ‘pocket’ guide:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/weekly-economic-indicators/pocket-databank-list-of-sources
But even then the GDP link is not annual so few would recognise it
Way short of what is required
But thanks
It’s been govuked up! German, US and others give direct answers to searches but we don’t need that due to our exceptionalism Richard.