ONS data revision: Rewriting five years of industry history

摘要

Looking at the latest data covering August, most people will focus on the fact it was the first annual fall in construction output since May 2013 and that private housing slowed. More interesting, however, is that the Office for National Statistics revised its data going all the way back to Q1 2010. If there is one thing people hate, it is rewriting history. Some of the changes made by the ONS were understandable, some of the others less so.Looking at the ONS's original reporting of the data, construction output in 2013 was said to have increased by 0.4 per cent compared with 2012, before growing 9.5 per cent in 2014 compared with 2013.However, materials sales rose considerably in 2013 and I can't imagine that contractors were buying materials a year in advance.