U.K. Statistics Body to End Government Prerelease Access
Move follows Journal articles highlighting concerns that data is traded on ahead of release
LONDON—Britain’s statistics body said it would stop giving the U.K. government access to official data ahead of public release, a practice that statisticians had long complained increased the chances of leaks.
“Prerelease access to [official] statistics is outweighed by the detriment to public trust in those statistics,” said John Pullinger, the head of the U.K. Statistics Authority.
The move follows reports by The Wall Street Journal which showed that some investors could be trading with knowledge of U.K. economic statistics before they are published.
The British pound and government bond futures moved in a way that was consistent with traders being informed of the strength or weakness of economic statistics before its publication, according to analysis for the Journal.
Statisticians have long pointed to what they say is Britain’s unusual practice in the handling of market-moving data: More than 100 people, from Prime Minister Theresa May to dozens of policy advisers and press officers, can get to see some of the figures a day before they come out. In the U.S., the president and the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers receive sensitive data such as gross domestic product a day in advance. In several European countries, there is no prerelease access at all.
An Office for National Statistics spokesman said that a very limited number of officials at the Bank of England would still be granted prerelease access when an economic data release coincided with a BOE interest-rate decision.
Alongside economic statistics, politically sensitive data on migration and crime will also no longer be given to the government ahead of time.
“There is no direct evidence of any leaks,” said Miles Fletcher, head of media and public relations at the Office for National Statistics.
“The national statisticians’ duty is to balance public trust in statistics against the benefit that prerelease access can bring,” he added. “It can no longer be said that it’s beneficial.”
Regulators say that widespread leaking can undermine confidence in public markets because it gives investors with early information an unfair trading advantage.
It also hits the credibility of the system through which the data is released.
Last year, the European Commission asked residents of 35 European countries how much they trusted their country’s economic statistics. Swedes expressed the highest level of confidence, with 73% saying they tended to trust the data. The U.K. came 23rd, with 44% of respondents saying they tended to trust the figures.