The Office for National Statistics is hosting a free webinar on 30 November at 11am to explain its Household Cost Indices and publish the latest data showing how inflation affects different groups.
The ONS announcement centres on its Household Cost Indices — a set of experimental measures that track how changing prices and costs land differently depending on who you are. Unlike the headline Consumer Prices Index, HCIs include mortgage interest payments, stamp duty and other home-ownership costs, making them a closer reflection of what many households actually pay out each month.
The core methodological difference is one of weighting. CPI and CPIH use plutocratic weighting, which is driven by total spending across all UK households — meaning higher-spending households carry more influence. HCIs use democratic weighting instead, giving each household an equal say in calculating average expenditure shares. In practice, that shift can produce meaningfully different inflation figures for lower-income groups.
The ONS publishes monthly HCI data, with quarterly bulletin summaries, broken down by income decile, housing tenure, retirement status, and whether a household includes children. The underlying expenditure data comes from the Living Costs and Food Survey, which draws on around 5,000 responding households per year.
HCIs are designed to complement CPI and CPIH, not replace them. The ONS describes them as experimental and subject to ongoing methodological development.
The webinar will cover the background, methodology and uses of the indices alongside the new data release scheduled for the same day, 30 November 2026.
Key information
- Webinar date: 30 November 2026, 11am
- What it covers: Background, methodology and uses of Household Cost Indices, plus the latest HCI data release
- Register: Via the link in the ONS post above
Source: @ONS