Public Figures

Britain’s official statistics

The edition of 21 August 2026

Nothing notable published today.

We would rather send you this than manufacture significance.

Two of our eight datasets were in a release window this morning and both were fetched: HM Land Registry's house price index and the ONS claimant count. Neither had anything new in it. The house price tables still reach June 2026 and are identical to the release we read yesterday, which carried both of yesterday's items; the claimant count still reaches July 2026 and is identical to the release we read on Tuesday the 18th. Every value compared between vintages came back unchanged, and no watched publisher announced a release today.

One dataset remains out of service to be candid about: MHCLG published new temporary accommodation figures on Wednesday in a changed file format, and rather than guess at the new shape our software stopped and the files await a human reading. Until then the homelessness series ends at the quarter we already hold. The August prison bulletin has still not appeared; the Ministry of Justice's usual publication window has now passed, so we watch the announcements calendar for it.

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