FOI reference: FOI-2024-2185
You asked
Speaking on an episode The National newspaper’s Holyrood Weekly podcast, released on 2 August 2024, the accountant Richard Murphy said this;
“I’ve had long discussions in my life with the Office for National Statistics about the flaws in the UK’s national accounts. I’ve even had them change their figures for disclosure of gross domestic product in the UK, and national debt in the UK, as a consequence of those discussions.”
Can you please provide details of the changes the ONS made to GDP and national debt figures as a result of discussions with Richard Murphy.
We said
For all our economic statistical outputs, including GDP and national debt statistics, ONS regularly engages with a wide range of stakeholders to ensure they meet user needs and incorporate improvements.
Following a search of the relevant mailboxes, Richard Murphy has been in contact with ONS regarding national debt statistics, for example in 2020 and 2022. National debt statistics were not changed as a consequence of those discussions.
Following external user engagement, including with Richard Murphy, we provided some additional information in our public sector finances publication. In 2021, we added more columns of data to our public sector finances data table PSA9, and in 2022, we published an article explaining the recording of interest payable to holders of UK government gilts within the UK public sector finances.
Public sector finances data table PSA9 is published in Appendix A, available here:
The explanatory article published in 2022 is available here:
In the context of the wider GDP statistics, we have conducted a search of our central GDP correspondence email database using key words, such as the name of the individual. The GDP correspondence email database is our main channel of communication on GDP-related matters, particularly with members of the public. As a result of these searches, we have not found specific correspondence in association with this query.
However, as the quote in question could relate to various communications on this topic over an undefined timeframe, the resource required to conduct wider searches, particularly in historical, archived, and individual databases, would exceed the cost limit for Freedom of Information requests, found under Section 12 of FOIA.