Number-cruncher hopes it all adds up

AFTER facing a barrage of criticism from MPs over sweeping revisions to economic data last year, Britain's official statistician Len Cook looks set for a more comfortable ride when a rematch takes place next month.

Despite fresh blunders over double-counting of pensions savings and huge increases to estimates of health service productivity, the head of the statistics watchdog said the quality of economic data was good.

'I think quite a lot of the criticism of the ONS (Office for National Statistics) has been misinformed. There is always going to be a trade-off between speed and accuracy,' said David Rhind, chairman of the Statistics Commission.

'Our job is to make sure the public can have confidence in official statistics and in terms of revisions to economic data the process is good.'

Last year, Cook was ripped to shreds by the Treasury Select Committee after doubling key gross domestic product data because of a mix-up over construction output. The revision wrong-footed the City's army of economists and the Bank of England's monetary policy committee, which had cut interest rates in the belief growth was weak.

In a House of Commons debate, Cook was branded 'an innumerate national statistician who can't count' while another MP said Cook should return to Australia and count sheep.

But with no major economic data mishaps in the past 12 months, Cook will be hoping his latest grilling on 20 October will be a more gentle affair.

James Mitchell at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, who looked into data revisions for the Statistics Commission, said the ONS has taken his report's recommendations on board.

'We recommended that the ONS should improve the way it communicates with statistics users and explain more clearly why revisions were happening. The ONS co-operated fully,' Mitchell said.

As part of the drive towards greater openness, the ONS now indicates in its data releases whether the numbers tend to be revised up or down. It is also carrying out a three-year £75m modernisation of its number-crunching system.

The recent discrepancy between gloomy ONS manufacturing figures and upbeat survey evidence is likely to be on the MPs' agenda.