Improving ONS data in response
to the city region devolution
agenda
Jonathan Athow, Deputy National Statistician for Economic
Statistics
Public Policy Forum, 14 October 2016

The need for change
Changing policy landscape Bean Review

ONS is undergoing radical change

Regional and local statistics
ONS currently produce a wide range of economic and
social sub-national data

Key regional economic outputs
Regional Accounts
• Regional Gross Value Added (GVA)
• Regional Gross Disposable
Household Income (GDHI)
• Welsh Short term indicators
Labour Market
• Regional Labour Market Statistical
Bulletin, monthly
• Claimant Count
• Business Register and
Employment Survey (BRES), annual
• Annual Survey of Hours and
Earnings (ASHE), annual
Business Statistics
• Business Demography, annual
• UK Non-Financial Business
Economy (ABS), annual
Other
• Sub-national productivity, annual
• GVA for LEPs, annual
• GDHI for LEPs, annual

Other regional outputs / activity
Analysis
• City Regions and Northern
Powerhouse short articles
• Sub-national analysis – e.g. rural
urban productivity, productivity by
region by industry
• Microdata improvement and
analysis
Small Area Statistics
• Small Area Income Estimates
• House Price Statistics for Small
Areas
• Small Area Housing Affordability
International
• Eurostat
• NUTS regulation
• European city statistics (Urban
Audit)
• OECD
Other
• Stakeholder engagement
• Development of new statistical
geographies to enable improved
analysis – e.g. Travel to Work Areas,
Towns and Cities

Planned improvements
• A number of developments were described in the
following document, published in May 2016
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/regionalaccounts/grossdisposablehousehold
income/articles/supportingdevolutiondevelopmentsinregionalandlocalstatistics/
2016-05-25

Planned work – Regional Accounts
• Balanced regional GVA - produce a balanced measure,
combining income and production measures (by end 2017)
• The regional household account - develop annual regional
estimates of household final consumption expenditure and
the household saving ratio (by 2018)
• Regional short term indicators – deliver quarterly output
indicators for English regions (by 2018)
• Flexible geography - provide a mechanism for compiling
estimates for non-standard, flexible geographical areas by
breaking down existing regional measures (mainly at
NUTS3 level) to smaller areas and building back up (by
2019)
Contact: trevor.fenton@ons.gsi.gov.uk

Planned work – Public Sector Finances
• Annual UK public sector finances – produce country and
region estimates (by 2017)
ONS will also continue to work with devolved
administrations to provide them with the underlying data to
allow them to produce their own country specific fiscal
statistics (as is currently done with Scotland)
• Devolved taxes - work with bodies responsible for
administering devolved taxes to ensure that as taxation
powers are devolved there is no drop in the timeliness or
quality of tax data reported in the monthly public sector
finances bulletin
Contact: foyzunnesa.khatun@ons.gsi.gov.uk

Planned work - Other
• Administrative data – explore its use to increase the quality and
timeliness of published estimates
• Exports of services - publish experimental estimates by region
and country of the UK, supplementing existing HMRC
information on trade in goods by region (summer 2016)
• Stakeholder engagement - develop an enhanced programme
• Productivity estimates - combine estimates of regional and sub-
regional productivity into a single output
• Small area data - increase the range and timeliness of outputs,
including income, poverty and house prices
• Regional prices development - assess suitability of the current
consumer price data for calculating regional price indices and
consider alternative sources that could supplement the data
Contact: RLSD.enquiries@ons.gsi.gov.uk