Revisions to Economic Statistics

This page brings together in one place recent ONS material on revisions to economic data.

Latest Developments

Quality Information for Economic Statistics
The ONS is committed to providing users with ways to assess the fitness for purpose of official statistics. A programme of work is in progress to produce Quality Reports for important ONS outputs.

Monitoring the Quality of the National Accounts
The quality of quarterly estimates are being closely monitored during the transition to modernised systems. An article was published in March 2008 describing this work

International comparisons

OECD Quarterly National Accounts Revisions Database
This database allows users assess the reliability of National Accounts first estimates across 18 OECD countries. The database will be updated in August/September of every year.

An OECD paper accompanying this database was updated in October 2007.
Download OECD paper

The ONS jointly hosted an international workshop on revisions analysis, held at the OECD in October 2004.
Download paper presented by ONS at the OECD Workshop (413Kb, pdf)

Other links

The Bank of England Real-time database
The Bank of England has constructed a real-time database that contains successive sets of data for a range of macroeconomic time series. The database is updated every year following the publication of the ONS Blue Book.

Key Documentation

Information on progress made towards the recommendations made in the Statistics Commission Review of Revisions and supporting submissions made by the ONS.

First Releases

Send us your views

If you wish to send us your views on the subject of revision to economic statistics please e-mail gdp@ons.gov.uk.

Please note:

We cannot guarantee that any comments or views you send us will receive individual feedback or replies. However we do promise to look at and consider all views we receive.

More information on ONS' revisions policy

• ONS Policy on Publication of revisions triangles on the National Statistics website (PDF)
• ONS Policy on Standards for presenting revisions in time series First Releases (PDF)
• A full listing of available spreadsheets showing revisions in First Releases (link)

Articles published

Articles and papers relating to revisions analysis published by ONS

Revisions policies for Key Outputs

• Public Sector Accounts Revisions Policy
• National Accounts - Revisions statement
• Labour Market Revisions Policy
• Retail Sales Index Revisions Policy

This page last revised: Monday, 9 June 2008