The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presents a significant challenge. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is working hard to ensure the UK government has the vital information needed to respond to the impact of this pandemic on our economy and society.

We are working with UK businesses to get the information we need to produce high quality statistics to inform decision-making. But, inevitably, the disruption caused by the pandemic means we need a little extra time to quality assure some of our data before publication. Therefore, we are announcing a short delay to our gross domestic product (GDP) and Retail Sales Index publication dates for the next few months to allow us additional time for data processing and quality assurance, to ensure the highest possible level of accuracy.

We have released a public statement on COVID-19 and the production of statistics.

The changes to the release dates are outlined here: