Councils have branded the Office of National Statistics (ONS) handling of migration figures as ‘shambolic', as the row over population numbers continues. The LGA, London Councils, Westminster City Council and Slough Council have all been campaigning for a change in the way the population is measured, and have condemned the ONS once more, after it was also savaged by a parliamentary committee. The treasury committee said last week, data from the ONS was ‘not fit for purpose', and called for the International Passenger Survey to be scrapped and replaced with a more comprehensive survey. ‘The ONS's handling of migrant figures has been shambolic, and at huge cost to local authorities, such as Westminster, which have borne the brunt of a huge and unaccounted influx of immigration, particularly from Eastern Europe,' said Westminster City Council's deputy leader, Colin Barrow. ‘It is now time for the Government to overhaul the ONS, and change the methodology for counting migrants, in order to provide adequate funding to areas with high levels and costs of migration,' he added. London Councils' chairman, Merrick Cockell, said poor population statistics had damaged public services in the capital. ‘It is essential that the Government urgently remedies these failings before ordinary Londoners, who rely on our services, lose out,' said Cllr Cockell. And LGA chairman, Sir Simon Milton, added: ‘It is clear that the population is higher than official estimates show, so existing funds are being stretched across this larger population.' An ONS spokesman said: ‘There has been a lot of work to improve population and migration statistics over the past year, and there is already a programme of work in place to take forward further improvements.'
