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Migration Statistics Improvements

The Office for National Statistics is coordinating a programme of work to improve migration and population statistics. It is focused on making improvements to the methods and data sources used to estimate the population at national and local levels during the inter-censal period. These improvements are needed to minimise the risk of divergence between the rolled forward mid-year population estimates and the 2011 Census-based population estimates, and to better understand the differences that remain.

This programme of work was set up in response to the report of the Inter-Departmental Task Force on Migration Statistics, which was included the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and other government departments including the devolved administrations.

The key strands of the Improving migration and population statistics (IMPS) research are:

migration research (both international and internal within the UK)
collaborative work with local authorities to investigate the potential for making greater use of administrative data sources to improve local estimates
population definitional issues

More information on the progress made on each of these strands of research is provided in the IMPS updates on the ONS website. GROS are actively involved in the working groups.