Speeches

Alan Brown – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Work and Pensions

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alan Brown on 2015-11-09.

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that job vacancy statistics do not double-count jobs advertised through multiple agencies on the job vacancy portal.

Priti Patel

The official vacancy statistics are national statistics, produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), and not DWP. ONS is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and is the recognised national statistical institute for the UK.

The ONS is overseen by the UK Statistics Authority, which is an independent body operating at arm’s length from government as a non-ministerial department, directly accountable to Parliament. The UK Statistics authority provides independent scrutiny (monitoring and assessment) of all official statistics produced in the UK.