UK statistics office cancels producer price data release

Britain’s Office for National Statistics said on Friday that it was cancelling the release of producer price inflation (PPI) data due on Dec. 14, after the discovery of further potential problems with the calculation of the series.

Last month the ONS had to correct the series due to an error in the weight given to diesel fuel, and on Friday the ONS said it had found a further issue related to food prices which it is now investigating.

“While this is being completed, we advise caution using the PPI datasets which may be subject to revision,” it said.

Consumer price inflation data is not affected by the issue and will be released on schedule on Dec. 14, the day before the Bank of England is due to publish its December interest rate decision.

Producer price figures measure the selling prices of factory goods, known as output prices, and the costs they pay for materials and fuel – or input prices.

After the previous error in the weight given to diesel prices was corrected, headline annual output producer price inflation was revised up by an average of 1.8 percentage points from January to October 2022.

October’s reading for producer output price inflation was revised up to 17.2 per cent from 14.8 per cent, while producer input price inflation – which was less affected by the error – was revised up to 19.5 per cent from 19.2 per cent in October.