The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has suspended the official statistics status of the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Wealth and Assets Survey (WAS) due to quality concerns.

These quality concerns were identified in a review by the OSR, while the ONS also issued a request for the accreditation of its core outputs using the WAS from round 8 onwards to be suspended.

The OSR decided to suspend accreditation after its review found that declining response rates and a lack of investment had significantly impacted the quality of the survey data.

While the review found that the ONS had made efforts to mitigate pandemic impacts, the statistics were no longer of sufficient value or quality to meet users’ needs, and therefore no longer comply with the Code of Practice for Statistics.

The OSR said that the suspension applied immediately to the most recently published round 8 data and will continue for all future releases until ONS can demonstrate significant improvements.

To address these issues and improve the statistics, the ONS has been given five requirements to meet, with regular progress reports starting in September 2025.

The ONS has committed to developing a plan for the collection and processing work required to bring wealth statistics back to the standard needed for users, which it intends to publish in the autumn.

“The WAS is an important source of information on distribution of wealth in the UK and is used widely by analysts and policy makers,” commented OSR director general for regulation, Ed Humpherson.

“We welcome the ONS’s request to remove the accreditation, which is consistent with the report we are publishing today.

“We have outlined the actions ONS need to take in order to restore the quality of these statistics and the confidence of their users.”

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