S5 | Ep 50 | Rebuilding Trust: How the ONS Is Turning Data Lessons into Lasting Change with James Benford, Director General for Economic, Social and Environmental Statistics at Office for National Statistics

In Episode 50, the season finale of Season 5 of Driven by Data: The Podcast, Kyle Winterbottom was joined by James Benford, Director General of Surveys, Economic and Social Statistics at Office for National Statistics, where they have a candid discussion regarding the turnaround job at hand after recent public scrutiny and high-profile errors.

They dig into what went wrong, the impact on trust, and how new leadership is refocusing priorities, rebuilding quality, and resetting culture, plus more, which includes;

• How a turnaround mandate is reshaping ONS culture, leadership, and structure after the June review.
• Why transparent acknowledgment and correction of high-profile errors is central to rebuilding trust.
• How grand tech ambitions drift without clear use cases and why that must change.
• Why building a single data platform without a clear use case became a costly lesson in purpose-led design.
• How ruthless focus and prioritisation are creating space for excellence in core statistics.
• Why survey response rates are falling globally and how ONS is adapting to the new reality.
• How digital-first, user-centred survey design can lift completion and reduce bias.
• How alternative data sources add power and why third-party data quality and governance matter.
• Why multidisciplinary teams are non-negotiable.
• How recognising data and AI as economic assets will reshape national accounting.
• Why GenAI and ML can raise quality while saving time.
• How “Stats GPT” style access can make official statistics easier to find, query, and use.

Find more information on the general reset underway at the ONS, and the detail on the statistics and the surveys discussed in this episode.

If you wish to provide feedback on what ONS is currently doing, please use this mailbox: econstatsplan@ons.gov.uk 

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