FOI Ref: FOI/2021/3044
You asked
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 I am writing to request the following information for the consumer prices sub index "car insurance" (item ID 610417).
How many price quotes did the ONS receive from its motor insurance data provider in May 2021, June 2021, July 2021 and August 2021 this year?
Of those price quotes received in (1) how many were used each month to calculate the price index in regards to the "matched pairs" methodology?
Of the price quotes that were not used in (1) how many of these were excluded because they failed the ONS data validation and/or data consistency checks as described in the technical manual?
Of the price quotes that were not used in (1) how many were excluded due to not having a corresponding "matched pair" in previous months?
Of the quotes collected in (1) how many insurance companies provided quotes for each month?
How many insurance companies provided quotes for all months in (1)?
Did the ONS impute any of the sub-indices for the individual insurance companies in (1)? If any of the sub-indices were imputed in those months, could you please advise how many companies quotes that impacted and the imputation processes used?
We said
Thank you for your request.
Car insurance data is sold to the ONS by a third-party supplier.
Therefore, all of the requested information is exempt under Section 43(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA), as disclosure would prejudice the commercial interests of a third party. The third party provide the requested information for a charge. Therefore, if we were to release this information under FOIA to the public, this would jeopardise their ability to generate income for this information, and other information, in the future.
Further, we would be undermining the trust that suppliers place in us to ensure that we do not cause a detrimental impact to their ability to generate income as a consequence of working with us. This would, in turn, damage our commercial interests, as this company, and other companies, would be unwilling to work with us in the future. This would reduce the pool of suppliers with which we could work with in the future, which would likely mean that we would need to obtain services at a less advantageous price and at a lower quality.
The use of this exemption is subject to the public interest test.
We recognise arguments in favour of transparency of the information held by public authorities. However, as this is regarding information that is produced by a private company for a charge, we see little public interest in this information being made available free of charge.
Furthermore, we should also consider the public interest in our own capability to obtain data in order to produce well-informed, valuable statistics. We must also consider the public interest in ensuring that businesses control access to the information they provide as their trade. Damage to the trust and confidence of our suppliers reduces the pool of suppliers with which we can negotiate, leading to a disincentive for us to be offered a fair price for services and a reduction in the quality of services offered. This would be detrimental to the preservation of public funds and the quality of service received by members of the public. Therefore, this damage to our reputation directly and our statutory function to collect good quality data and in turn produce good quality statistics that serve the public good.
Therefore, the public interest in withholding this information outweighs the public benefit of release.