The Office for National Statistics has refreshed its real-time indicators dashboard, offering a weekly snapshot of economic and social change across the UK based on experimental data methods.
The ONS posted this week that its Economic Activity and Social Change dashboard has been updated, drawing on rapid-response surveys, novel data sources and methods the organisation describes as original. The dashboard covers four broad categories — consumer behaviour; business and workforce; energy and housing; and transport — and has been running in some form since March 2020.
The ONS classifies the indicators as official statistics in development, meaning they carry a health warning: they’re not a finished product and shouldn’t be treated as a direct replacement for established monthly, quarterly or annual economic measures. A separate monthly bulletin provides fuller commentary on the same indicators for those who want more context behind the numbers.
Speed is the point. Traditional economic statistics can take months to compile and publish, so the dashboard exists to give businesses, researchers, policymakers and the public a faster read on what’s happening.
But the ONS flags that some figures can be distorted by adverse weather, public holidays, bank holidays and school holidays. Where seasonal adjustment has been applied to smooth out those effects, it’s noted in the relevant chart descriptions. Individual indicator values also carry dataset-specific notes, so users are advised to check those before drawing conclusions from any single figure.
Source: @ONS
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