Inflation 2024 – Are we using the right measures?

Introduction (View Slides)

Jill Leyland  – Jill represents the Royal Statistical Society on the National Statistician’s “Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Consumer Prices” and with John Astin she wrote the 2015 paper “Towards a Household Inflation Index”.  She has been an Expert Witness on inflation measurement, was a Vice President of the Royal Statistical Society from 2009 to 2012 and awarded the Society’s West medal for services to official statistics in 2018. In the past she worked for the World Gold Council, the OECD, the Economist Intelligence Unit and the UK Government Statistical Service, among other organisations.

Current regulatory Issues in price statistics (View Slides)

Ed Humpherson – Ed is head of the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) with the responsibility to ensure that National Statistics and data serve the public good.  Ed is also Vice Chair of The Motability Foundation, and trustee of Pro Bono Economics. He is on the advisory board of the Regulatory Policy Institute, the delivery board of Admin Data Research UK, and the advisory board of the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence.  Prior to joining the Authority, Ed was a Board Member and Executive Leader for Economic Affairs at the National Audit Office, a post he held since July 2009. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh and is a Chartered Accountant and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

The ONS consumer price statistics and their use cases: CPIH, CPI and HCI. (View Slides)

Stephen Burgess – Stephen is Deputy Director of Price Statistics at the ONS. He previously worked at the Bank of England advising the Monetary Policy Committee and the Financial Policy Committee (FPC) where he led a programme analysing the resilience of UK households in the light of rises in interest rates and living costs, and oversaw the calibration of the FPC’s mortgage market policies. In previous roles he led the Bank’s modelling of the potential c9onsequences of a “no deal” Brexit and co-led the Bank’s work to stress test the major UK banks response to the Covid pandemic.

The Household Cost Index and income growth (View Slides)

Martin Weale – Martin is Professor of Economics at King’s College, London and chair of the National Statistician’s Committee for Advice on Standards for Economic Statistics. His interest in economic statistics began as an ODI Fellow at the National Statistics Office in Malawi following graduation in 1977. Subsequently lecturing  in Economics at Cambridge University he became Director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research in 1995 and was appointed a CBE in 1999 following work on earnings statistics. He was an external member of the Monetary Policy Committee from 2010 to 2016.

Are there alternatives?

Tony Cox -Tony has chaired the Inflation Statistics User Group (formerly the RPI CPI User Group) since it was established in 2012. The aims of the Group are to foster co-operation between the ONS, its advisory bodies and other users. Most of Tony’s career was spent with BT, a significant proportion of which was spent working in Japan. In addition, he has been public affairs director for the National Joint Utilities Group and was a committee member of the CBI Transport Committee. He is a Trustee of his local Citizens Advice office and an accredited Case Handler for Prospect.

Introducing the Decent Living Index (View Slides)

Dr Juliet Stone – Juliet is Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CSRP) at Loughborough University focusing on quantitative analysis relating to low income and living standards. This includes research for Marie Curie to produce the first ever estimates of the numbers of people who die in poverty and working with the Child Poverty Coalition to produce annual estimates of child poverty rates at a local level.  Juliet plays a key role in the influential Minimum Income Standard (MIS) programme of research that was pioneered at CRSP, and takes the lead on producing and analysing MIS data for a wide range of outputs, including the annual Households Below MIS report.

Are the HCI’s a better replacement for the RPI than  CPIH? (View Slides)

Shaun Richards – Shaun is an independent economist and journalist, who analyses economic events and developments for Core Finance TV, Bloomberg Radio and various publications including the Business live section of the Guardian, City-AM and the Daily Express. A graduate of the LSE, Shaun has also worked in Tokyo and he maintains a watchful eye on inflation rates and the policies of the Bank of England, including the long term effects of Quantitative Easing (QE).

The view from the shop Floor (View Slides)

Geoff Tily – Geoff has been senior economist at the TUC since 2014. Before that he was 25 years in the government statistical and economic services, mainly at the Office for National Statistics but also at HM Treasury. His parallel academic activities include a book (2006) Keynes’s General Theory, the Rate of Interest and ‘Keynesian Economics’: Keynes Betrayed and ongoing contributions to the macro policy debate.

Is there a better alternative?

Simon Briscoe – Simon is a member of the Better Statistics Advisory Committee and was until recently a founder director of t-tab, a data science start-up now successfully launched as OctaiPipe Ltd.  Simon’s career includes working in the civil service, investment banking and at the FT. Among various contributions to our public life he was an adviser to parliament’s Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee (PACAC) and is a past trustee of FullFact.

Tony Dent – Tony is a Director of Better Statistics CIC, Chairman of CMR Group and Director of Sample Answers Ltd;  He is a statistician with over 40 years of International Market Research experience and has acted as a consultant to a number of companies, including the Civil Aviation Authority, DHL, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Radio Free Europe, and the Xerox Corporation. Tony holds a BSc and MSc in Mathematics and Statistics from Reading and Southampton.

Grant Fitzner – Grant is Chief Economist and Director of Macro-economic Statistics and Analysis at the Office for National Statistics, where he oversees the production and analysis of ONS economic statistics, including prices, productivity, public sector finance, trade and balance of payments. Grant has previously led economic and analytical teams at the NHS, DLUHC and BEIS, and held senior roles in investment banking, commercial property, market research, and the Australian federal government.

Vicky Pryce – Vicky is a member of the Better Statistics Advisory Committee and Chief Economic Adviser and board member at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). Vicky has held senior positions in business and the Civil service including as partner and chief economist at KPMG and joint head of the UK government economic service. She is author of several books including the celebrated Greekonomics

Paul Allin – Paul is a visiting professor in the department of mathematics at Imperial College London. His research centres on the use of measures of national wellbeing and progress. He is also the Royal Statistical Society’s honorary officer for National Statistics. Paul spent forty years as a professional statistician, researcher and policy analyst in government departments and agencies, latterly as director of the ONS measuring national wellbeing programme.