Cost of Labour Force Survey revamp nearly doubles in a year to £40.4m

From £24.1m earlier estimate

The cost of transforming the Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey (LFS) has nearly doubled in a year.

According to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request published on Friday (17 January), the ONS revealed it has spent around £10.1m a year since 2021-22 to set up, develop and test the Transformed LFS, with the estimated cumulative cost reaching £40.4m across four years. Treasury Committee takes aim at ONS on labour force data The £10.1m accounts for around 2% of the agency's gross expenditure over the period. However, according to a different FOI request in March 2024, the cost for the Transformed LFS was estimated to be £8m a year, reaching a total of £24.1m between the 2021-22 fin...