Consultation outcome

The future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales

From:: Office for National Statistics
Published: 17 August 2023
Last updated: 17 June 2025 — See all updates

Applies to England and Wales

Detail of outcome

On 17 June 2025 the UK Statistics Authority (subsequently referred to as “the Authority”), on the advice of the National Statistician, made a recommendation to the UK government on the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales. You can read the recommendation and Sir Robert Chote’s, Chair of the Authority, letters to the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Welsh government ministers, about the Recommendation on the Authority’s website.

To accompany the recommendation, we have published a Consultation Outcomes report which details the thematic analysis from the consultation and the evidence that provides the foundation of the recommendation. It contains analysis and findings of the responses and feedback that were received during the consultation.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is committed to ensuring that the principles of equality and diversity are at the heart of all of its decision making. To help achieve this goal, the ONS commissioned an interim equality impact assessment  relating to its proposals for the future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales.

We have now published an updated report to accompany the Authority’s Recommendation on the future of population and migration statistics, and you can read it on the ONS website: Recommendation on the future of population and migration statistics: equality impact assessment.

You can read more about The future of population and migration statistics in England and Wales on the ONS website.

Original consultation

Summary

At the Office for National Statistics (ONS), we want your views on our ambitious plans for the transformation of our population and migration statistics. These statistics cover a wide range of areas, including household characteristics, employment, health, religion and international migration.

This consultation was held on another website.

This consultation ran from
29 June 2023 to 11:59pm on 26 October 2023

Consultation description

High-quality, timely population statistics are essential to ensure people get the services and support they need within communities and nationwide. We are consulting to ensure that the population and migration statistics and analysis we produce continue to meet the changing needs of policy makers, citizens, and other data users. Our statistics should give you frequent, clear, timely and detailed insights into society. We also want to improve the coverage and accuracy of our statistics over time. To make sure that we meet your needs, we need your feedback on our proposals.

The consultation document explains the ONS’s proposals to create a sustainable system for producing essential, up-to-date statistics about the population. To do this, the system would primarily use administrative data such as tax or benefit data, complemented by survey data and a wider range of data sources. This could radically improve the statistics that the ONS produces each year and could replace the current reliance on the census every ten years. This consultation is seeking views on how these proposals meet the needs of users of ONS statistics compared to a system based on a census.

This consultation is also available in Welsh.

Documents

Future of Population and Migration Statistics Consultation

PDF, 1.3 MB, 67 pages

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