What caused the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to lose faith in its own jobs figures? After the pandemic, the ONS asked for the ‘national statistic’ quality mark to be taken off its estimates of whether Brits are working when response rates to its labour force survey collapsed. Fewer and fewer people were willing to invite an interviewer into their home to give them the 45-minute questionnaire. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey said ‘it is a problem’ to not have accurate unemployment numbers when setting interest rates, while Lord Bridges, chair of the House of Lords economic affairs committee, asked: ‘How are the Treasury and the bank to make critical decisions based on dodgy statistics?’
So why did the response rate fall? Ring doorbells were one surprising culprit mentioned by Sir Ian Diamond, the ONS’s leader, as he gave evidence to the Treasury select committee today. Sir Ian said that in disadvantaged areas, people are often too busy to answer – though increasing the payment for completing the survey from £10 to £50 has helped. But ‘in some of the more advantaged areas, where there are increasing gated communities, you can’t get in. Some of the flat refusals come because of Ring doorbells'. In other words, people see that it’s someone they don’t know, and they won’t let them in.
Although MPs were taking Sir Ian to task for the data his organisation produces, they sympathised with getting rejected on the doorstep. ‘We all know this in here, Sir Ian,’ committee chair Dame Meg Hillier commiserated.
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