From: Liz McKeown, Director of Economic Statistics Production and Analysis
Jen Woolford, Director of Social, Local and Census Statistics
To: Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation
Office for Statistics Regulation
(by email)
11 August 2026
Dear Ed,
Designation of Labour Force Survey and Annual Population Survey outputs
Thank you for OSR’s continued engagement and scrutiny of our labour market and wider household, socioeconomic and local statistics, and for your advice on their compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics.
This letter sets out our proposed approach to the designation of outputs derived from the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the Annual Population Survey (APS). The designation of statistics is an important public signal of quality, trustworthiness and value, and we want to ensure users have a clear explanation of our approach.
Since late 2023, we have taken a series of actions to recover the LFS and improve its quality, including returning to face-to-face interviewing, increasing respondent incentives, reinstating the sample boost, recruiting additional interviewers and updating the survey weighting. These measures have improved response levels from their lowest point to levels similar to those seen pre-pandemic, supported wider improvements in quality, and have been recognised by key users, including the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility. On that basis, we consider it appropriate to move any LFS-derived outputs that are currently official statistics in development – including LFS-derived Labour Market Statistics – to official statistics. We will continue to provide advice to users on the quality of Labour Market Statistics derived from the LFS within the Labour Market Statistics bulletins and through our quarterly assessments of LFS quality.
Given the linked design of the two surveys, APS-derived outputs that are currently official statistics in development will also move to official statistics. However, APS outputs also have additional quality considerations, including reductions in the sample boost and interviewer numbers following ONS prioritisation decisions. We will therefore separately provide further advice on the quality of the APS when the next dataset is released in September 2026.
We will not be seeking reaccreditation for LFS and APS-derived outputs (with the exception of regional gross disposable household income (GDHI) statistics outlined below). Instead, our priority is for outputs based on the Transformed Labour Force Survey (TLFS), as the online-first sustainable replacement for the LFS and APS, to achieve the standards required to become accredited official statistics and for OSR to consider their accreditation at the earliest opportunity.
In line with recent discussions with your team, we propose taking a different approach for regional GDHI statistics as although APS data are used, they are one input among several and are not the dominant source for the measure. We therefore intend to request that OSR consider reaccreditation of regional GDHI separately, supported by the relevant quality evidence.
In summary, our proposed approach is:
- LFS and APS-derived outputs that are currently official statistics in development will move to official statistics and we will not be seeking reaccreditation;
- TLFS-derived outputs will be prioritised for assessment to become accredited official statistics at the earliest opportunity; and
- regional GDHI statistics will be considered separately for reaccreditation.
We have engaged with other producers and users impacted by this change, who are supportive of our proposed approach. We welcome OSR’s view and in the meantime, we will continue to provide clear quality advice to users, support the transition to TLFS, and set out the evidence needed for separate consideration of regional GDHI. We will also provide an update on designation and an explanation of our approach within the next release of each affected output.
Yours sincerely,
Liz McKeown, Director of Economic Statistics Production and Analysis
Jennet Woolford, Director of Social, Local and Census Statistics