That old saying about lies, dammed lies and statistics is going to be thrown around today, as once again the ONS surprised everyone reporting that the High Street is still booming – or at least expanding.
Retail sales volume rose by 1.2 per cent between August and July said the ONS.
Apparently, monthly growth was driven by textile, clothing and footwear stores where sales rose by 4.1 per cent. Non-store retailing and the repair sector also rose by 2.4 per cent, while volume in food sales fell by 0.2 per cent.
The ONS also said: “The non-seasonally adjusted value of retail sales for the three months to August was 3.7 per cent higher than in the same period a year earlier.”
Stephen Robertson, Director General of the British Retail Consortium, said: “These unexpectedly resilient figures fail to convey how tough conditions are for customers and retailers. Plenty of retailers would be delighted if their sales values were up nearly four per cent on a year ago.
“Fundamental conditions are weakening, not improving, and recent banking industry uncertainty can only make customers more nervous about spending.
“Yes, clothing and footwear sales growth has risen but that growth is modest and driven by discounts. It cannot be called strong and cannot explain ONS’ high overall figures.”
Mr Robertson concluded: “We respect the ONS’s process but the Bank of England is right to treat these figures as only one measure of retail performance.”
Ummm, so reading between the lines, it would appear the BRC is, how could one put it tactfully ….not convinced.
Capital Economics put it this way: “These figures are still puzzlingly strong compared to the much gloomier message coming from the retail surveys, consumer confidence figures and anecdotal evidence. As such, we suspect that the MPC will treat them with a pinch of salt when considering the overall strength of the household sector.”
The trouble is, official figures do seem to be singularly poor at painting a realistic picture. It is the same with official government data on the housing market, which has only just begun to show annual falls in prices.
By contrast, more anecdotal surveys, such as consumer confidence and Purchasing Managers indices, or surveys on the housing market from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, and reports from the CBI and BRC, seem to provide information which is much closer to what one would expect.
But when making their forecasts, most economists base their figures on the official data – this could explain why economic forecasts have proven to be so wrong during this finance crisis.
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