Changes to Labour Market Statistics in Scotland: What You Need to Know

2 The future of the ONS Annual Population Survey in Scotland

2.1.1 Understanding the ONS Annual Population Survey and Its Importance

The Annual Population Survey (APS) and the Labour Force Survey (LFS) are UK wide surveys that serve as the primary sources of labour market statistics for Scotland. The LFS is conducted in-person on behalf of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in Great Britain and by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency in Northern Ireland. The ONS is responsible for combining these datasets to produce monthly UK labour market statistics, based on rolling quarterly data.

The APS builds upon the LFS by incorporating additional responses collected through local LFS boosts, which are designed to increase sample sizes and improve the reliability of estimates. The local LFS boost for Scotland has historically been funded by the Scottish Government.

This boost has played a key role in enhancing the quality of statistics for smaller population groups and geographic areas, including:

• local authority level estimates
• breakdowns by equality characteristics, such as age, disability, and ethnicity

These enriched datasets have been vital for informing policy decisions, supporting public service delivery, and providing a clearer picture of the Scottish labour market and economy.

2.2 Challenges with Declining Response Rates and Data Quality

In recent years, survey-based data collection across the UK has faced growing challenges due to declining public engagement. The LFS and APS have been particularly affected, with response rates steadily falling over time. This long-term decline has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a sharp drop in participation.

While the ONS has taken steps to improve response rates at the UK level, including enhancements to the LFS methodology, these improvements have not translated into a recovery in response rates for Scotland (Figure 1). Response rates for both the LFS and the Scottish LFS Boost remain below the average response rates for the rest of the UK, and the achieved sample sizes have not returned to pre-pandemic levels. Lower response rates have had a direct impact on the quality and reliability of labour market statistics for Scotland, especially at sub-national levels.

Figure 1: Household responses from both the LFS and LFS Boost have been declining since 2004 but the decrease in LFS Boost responses has been far greater than those seen in the LFS main

Annual Population Survey achieved sample for households in Scotland split by LFS and LFS Boost responses, January to December 2004 through to January to December 2024

In April 2025, the Scottish Government conducted a detailed quality assessment of labour market statistics derived from the Annual Population Survey (APS). The findings revealed a notable decline in data quality over time. In 2019, nearly 94% of regularly published estimates were classified as “robust.” By 2023, this figure had dropped to approximately 80%. Furthermore, while 58% of estimates were assessed as having “high” or “moderate” confidence, over 40% were rated as having “limited,” “low,” or “no” confidence, rendering two in five estimates unsuitable for publication.

This deterioration in data quality is closely linked to falling response rates, which have led to:

• smaller achieved sample sizes
• increased uncertainty and volatility in estimates
• wider confidence intervals
• a growing number of statistics failing to meet minimum publication standards

The ONS published a Labour Force Survey Quality Update in September 2025, which provides further insight into these challenges. While the report highlights improvements in UK level LFS estimates, it also confirms that response rates in Scotland remain below average response rates for the rest of the UK, particularly in later survey waves. Although ONS has taken steps to address this, such as increasing interviewer capacity in Scotland, these efforts have not yet resulted in a meaningful increase in sample sizes.

Additionally, ONS continues to advise caution when interpreting sub-national estimates, including those for Scotland, due to persistent volatility in the data. This reinforces the Scottish Government’s position that APS and LFS data at the Scotland level and below remain insufficiently robust for many analytical and policy-making purposes.

2.2.1 The Decision to End the Scottish LFS Boost

Over recent years, the Scottish Government has faced increasing challenges in publishing reliable labour market statistics derived from the APS. A growing number of key estimates, particularly those requiring detailed breakdowns, can no longer be published with confidence due to declining data quality. This has led to the suspension of several regular publications and limited our ability to respond to ad-hoc data requests.

While some breakdowns remain publishable (such as employment by age, sex, disability, and ethnicity at Scotland level), others, most notably unemployment estimates, have become increasingly unreliable. This has further constrained the suite of statistics we can release, as publishing only the “robust” estimates risks potential disclosure issues.

In addition to these quality concerns, the cost of maintaining the local LFS boost has continued to rise. Achieving previous levels of reliability would require increased investment, yet even those levels no longer meet the needs of many users.

Given these challenges, the Scottish Government has decided not to continue funding the local LFS boost from the October to December 2025 data collection onwards. This decision is based on:

• persistently low response rates and declining data quality
• poor value for money
• limited usefulness of the boost in its current form

This marks a strategic shift in how labour market data will be collected and used in Scotland, with a focus on exploring alternative sources to better meet user needs.

2.3 What this means for users

The removal of the Scottish Labour Force Survey (LFS) boost is expected to have a relatively modest impact on the overall availability of publishable labour market statistics. This is because, even with the boost in place, many detailed breakdowns, particularly at the local level, have not met the necessary quality standards for publication in recent years.

The first APS dataset to exclude Scottish boost responses will be for the period January to March 2026. However, due to the rolling nature of the APS and the time it takes for boost cases to fully phase out, the full impact will not be reflected until the January to December 2026 dataset, which is scheduled for publication in April 2027.

In the interim, users will begin to see gradual reductions in sample sizes across overlapping APS periods:

• April 2025 to March 2026 (published July 2026)
• July 2025 to June 2026
• October 2025 to September 2026

These reductions will culminate in the complete removal of boost responses from the January to December 2026 dataset.

As a result, a further reduction in the number of publishable statistics from the APS is anticipated in 2026, particularly for local authority level estimates and breakdowns by population characteristics, as the effects of the boost removal feed through into the APS data. A detailed assessment of the expected impact on APS derived statistics is provided in Annex 1.

Despite these changes, users will continue to have access to:

• monthly LFS estimates
• HMRC PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) and Claimant Count statistics
• APS data containing some boost responses until the April 2027 publication