User consultation- Business Prices June 2017

Overview

Office for National Statistics (ONS) is undertaking a programme of transformation. As part of this programme, we will improve the statistical and conceptual quality of our business price indices, the Producer Price Index (PPI) and Service Producer Price Index (SPPI).

Important components of this are improved sampling methodology across business prices surveys, more frequent updating of our weights via the introduction of annual chain linking, and a review of the coverage of important service sector price indices and improvements to simplify existing index structures. These improvements will reduce risks to quality, improve international comparability and streamline data available to UK users.

In addition, these improvements will also enable other elements of our transformation programme, such as providing improved deflators to allow the UK National Accounts development of annual, volume-based, balanced supply and use tables (SUT) using previous year’s prices (PYP).

Amendments to align with a new European regulation known as the Framework Regulation Integrating Business Statistics (FRIBS) will also be implemented. Adherence to this regulation will bring about important developments, which are vital for improving the UK National Accounts as well as ensuring that our reporting is consistent and comparable.

This user consultation aims to capture user views to help shape these improvements.

Why We Are Consulting

We are asking for your views on five proposed changes to the outputs produced for the Producer Price Index (PPI) and Services Producer Price Index (SPPI). These changes are:

1. Removal of the net sector aggregate for both PPI and SPPI.
2. Aggregation and publication of PPI for domestic output, exports and total output prices.
3. Inclusion of proxies in the aggregate SPPI to represent the whole service sector .
4. Review the demand for seasonal adjustment in PPI and SPPI series'.
5. Streamline data made available in PPI and SPPI statistical releases.

The consultation will close on 8 August 2017. We will publish an initial summary of our findings within 12 weeks of the consultation closing date. Your response will be treated in accordance with our Privacy Policy. If you prefer to answer the questions off-line, a hard copy of the questionnaire is available at the bottom of this page. If you have any queries, please email business.prices@ons.gsi.gov.uk.