Letter to the Institute of Economic Affairs from Dennis Roberts regarding the August 2010 minutes of the IEA Shadow Monetary Policy Committee
Issue date: 03 August 2010
Type: Correspondence
Dear Sir,
The minutes of your Shadow MPC published on 2 August 2010 imply that the coalition government was involved in the recent changes to the consumer price indices statistical bulletin. Nothing could be further from the truth. ONS is responsible for this release and reports direct to Parliament via the UK Statistics Authority: it does not report to government ministers. The recent changes to the consumer price indices statistical bulletin were first discussed with the independent Consumer Prices Advisory Group (CPAG) at its March meeting and mock-ups of the revised release were shared with CPAG and with many journalists who report on consumer prices during May. Although some information has been deleted from the shorter summary report (which nevertheless still runs to 20 pages), all of the information contained in the previous longer report is still published on the ONS website at the usual time each month: no tables have been suppressed.
Yours faithfully
Dennis Roberts,
Director, Surveys and Administrative Sources Directorate,
Office for National Statistics,
Government Buildings,
Cardiff Road,
Newport NP10 8XG
