Business Reporter and Head of Statistics, BBC News
PAThe head of the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), Sir Ian Diamond, has resigned with immediate effect due to health reasons, at a time when the ONS faces a crisis of confidence in its work.
“Due to ongoing health issues, Sir Ian has decided he is unable to give the full commitment he would like to drive the organisation forward,” the ONS said.
Last month, a report from the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) laid out its concerns about the quality of the ONS’s data.
These concerns focused on, but were not limited to, the widely recognised problems with the Labour Force Survey which is used to measure the unemployment rate in the UK.
Dr Sarah Cumbers, chief executive of the Royal Statistical Society, said: “Sir Ian Diamond showed outstanding leadership of the ONS and the wider statistical system during the pandemic, helping to make the UK a world leader in delivering timely data in a rapidly changing environment.”
Dr Cumbers also acknowledged the OSR report.
“Given the recent scrutiny of the system, we look forward to engaging with the Cabinet Office and the UK Statistics Authority to consider how the National Statistician role should evolve, and to working with Sir Ian’s successor to address the ongoing challenges,” she said.
The report looked at concerns around business surveys and found that ONS staff were not always being listened to when flagging emerging problems to senior managers.
A lack of confidence in the quality of data makes it more difficult for the government and companies to make fully informed decisions.
Since the pandemic, statistics agencies around the world have struggled to get good enough response rates to ensure their data is of the quality they would like.
The regulator said it would like more assurance that the ONS has sufficient steps in place to regularly review and improve sample design and representativeness, tackling bias, survey methodology, and imputation.
Under fire
Sir Ian took the top job at the Office for National Statistics in October 2019.
This meant he was soon thrown into the spotlight in the early days of 2020, as a key member of SAGE, the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies.
But the challenges since the pandemic have in some ways been even harder to navigate; the ONS came under fire as the quality of official data slipped.
The ONS’s flagship jobs survey has struggled to gather enough responses, as fewer and fewer people completed its questionnaires.
Its data became so unreliable that the UK’s statistics regulator removed its kitemark of quality and MPs and the Bank of England worried they could not use its figures.
The online replacement for the employment survey has been repeatedly delayed.
Then, a highly critical internal report laid bare a torrid experience for those working on the replacement project that “affected wellbeing and confidence at all levels”.
Originally scheduled for September 2024, the replacement employment survey has been put back until at least next year, with Sir Ian warning MPs that it may not be fully ready before 2027.
Criticisms
This was not the only problem the ONS faced in 2024.
ONS statisticians went on strike over the reversal of one of the most generous work-from-home policies in the civil service.
The Office for Statistics Regulation – the regulator – criticised the ONS for its “defensiveness” when responding to questions about a new analysis of gender identity.
And repeated upward revisions undermined the credibility of the ONS’s estimates of the levels of migration.
In April, the Cabinet Office announced a rapid review, to be overseen by Sir Robert Devereux, a retired senior British civil servant.
The review will look into the ONS’s delivery of core statistics and major programmes, its organisational culture, structure and leadership and its relationships with the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury.
