The Treasury has criticised the government’s own statisticians for a catalogue of sloppiness, including mistakes and slow responses with data.
It said: “While production of key statistics is largely conducted effectively, the website and a number of public errors, delays in publication, the apparent lack of any house style and too much running to catch up make ‘agreeing’ with ‘professionalism’ more finely balanced than it should be.”
The concerns about the Office for National Statistics were aired in an annual survey obtained by The Times under the Freedom of Information Act.
The survey was carried out by Sir David Ramsden, the chief economic adviser to the Treasury and the head of the government’s economics service, and related to the financial year 2013-14.
An ONS spokeswoman