User needs from producer price inflation statistics

Overview

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces a range of statistics for both consumer and producer price inflation (CPI and PPI respectively). 

We are reviewing our publications for producer price inflation statistics, with the aim of refining our outputs to better meet users' needs. This will also help with our quality assurance processes by reducing the number of data items that are repeated across multiple outputs. 

PPI statistics include Input (inputs into manufacturing), Output (outputs from manufacturing) and Services inflation estimates. Our Input PPI inflation estimate comprises domestic and Import Producer Price Indices (PPI and IPI), with the latter covering imports into manufacturers only. 

The Output PPI measure comprises domestic and Export Producer Price Indices (PPI and EPI), with the latter covering exports from manufacturers only. The Services PPI inflation estimate covers the price of services provided to UK-based customers for a selection of service industries. These individual price indices are also aggregated together to create a services industry measure (headline SPPI) with limited coverage. It does not yet provide full coverage of the UK services sector. 

Our current list of standard outputs includes a statistical bulletin and multiple datasets. These outputs are described in more detail in the ‘Current publications’ section in the Word document at the end of this page. 

Why your views matter

We are looking to understand how our outputs work for all types of users of our statistics, specifically with on the following two questions: 

1. How are our outputs used by you, your team or your organisation? 

• Rationale: We are keen to understand your use of our outputs to ensure that our statistics meet users needs, but equally, we want to ensure that all outputs are used and minimise the production and publication of those which are rarely used. 

2. What improvements could be made to our standard outputs to better meet your needs, for example to formatting, content or publication frequency? 

• Rationale: Our outputs have been developed over several years, but we understand that how people use them have also developed dramatically. For instance, many of our current outputs are designed to be read by people or printed. However, we suspect that many users will be using our outputs as an input into their own processes and hence outputs which are more readily suitable for those purposes – for example, by minimising text formatting – may be preferable. 

Your feedback will enable to us to better meet your needs. Having gathered this feedback, we may: 

• merge statistical products where there are multiple publications on the same or similar topics 

• reduce the frequency of products  

• change the scope and volume of statistical products where there are multiple metrics and breakdowns that are duplicates or rarely used 

• introduce new statistical products where there is a new or emerging need 

• pause or stop statistical products where the statistics may no longer be relevant or appear to be rarely used