Next time you’re thinking about reacting to the first print of some important UK economic data — please bear in mind this press release from the Office of National Statistics, released on Wednesday:
Quarterly National Accounts (Q1 2010) scheduled for publication on 30 June 2010 at 9.30am has been postponed by the Office for National Statistics.
Quality assurance by ONS revealed potential errors in some of the detailed figures in the National Accounts data set. To allow time to ensure the statistics fully meet National Statistics standards, ONS has decided reluctantly to postpone publication until Monday 12 July.
The quality issues identified for this release have no impact on data already published by ONS.
But it does have an impact on some forthcoming releases:
The postponement of Quarterly National Accounts also affects other related releases which have also been postponed:
Balance of Payments (Q1 2010): now to be published on 12 July 2010.
Index of Services (April 2010) (due to have been published on Thursday 1 July) will now be published on 12 July.
Consumer Trends (Q1 2010) will be published on 15 July. Productivity Measures (Q1 2010) will be published on 15 July.
Market Sector Gross Value Added will also be published on 12 July.
Thank goodness we weren’t all using this data to accurately tell if Britain has been leaving the world’s worst recession since the 1930s, or anything.
That would be annoying.
Related links:
ONS admits numbers don’t add up – FT
Random Reasons to be Bearish – FT Alphaville
UK growth forecasts revised downwards - FT Alphaville