The Office for National Statistics “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people in the UK, Whitehall sources have claimed, as the body admitted it could have carried out “additional probing” before releasing the controversial data.
An official inquiry by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) into the census finding that 260,000 people identified as transgender has drawn up several “lessons learned” from the way the data was handled by the ONS.
They include a conclusion the ONS should do more to communicate “uncertainty” about the data and should have sought external “quality assurance”.
The inquiry’s findings are likely to exacerbate tensions between ministers and the ONS after the body admitted earlier this month it had underestimated the size of the economy by nearly 2 per cent as of the end of 2021 – meaning Britain recovered to its pre-pandemic level almost two years ago.
A Whitehall source suggested the ONS executive, led by Prof Sir Ian Diamond, may have lost its “credibility” to accurately record sex and gender, based on its handling of the trans issue together with its separate loss of a legal challenge over the wording of the 2021 census.
The source said it was now clear the 2021 figures on gender, released in January, “hugely overestimated” the number of transgender people – a view they said was shared by multiple ministers.
Hellbound and Down 