Series details: CRDA/61

Consumer Price indices are important indicators of how the UK economy is performing. The indices are used by the government, business and society in general. The indices can affect interest rates, tax allowances, wages, state benefits, pensions, maintenance, contracts and many other payments. They also show the impact of inflation on family budgets.

The two main consumer price indices in the UK are the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) and the Retail Prices Index (RPI).

The Government’s inflation target is based on the CPI; the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee sets interest rates to meet this target. The RPI is the more familiar measure of the rate of inflation. Tax allowances, state benefits, pensions and many other payments are often revised in line with the RPI.

The Consumer and Retail Prices Index datasets are compiled and published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

Consumer Price indices measure the change in the general level of prices charged for goods and services bought for the purpose of consumption in the UK. The CPI and the RPI are the two main measures of inflation. The indices represent the average change in prices across a wide range of consumer purchases. This is achieved by carefully recording the prices of a typical selection of products from month to month, using a large sample of shops and other outlets throughout the UK. Although the two indices are similar, there are some areas where the CPI differs significantly.

The datasets held by NDAD comprise:

1. Retail Prices Index snapshot 1987-2003 (CRDA/62/DS/1), described on transfer as 'recent' RPI data. The RPI dataset generally goes back to 1987, although some of the data (eg on pensioner indices) may go back to an earlier date. See Links to dataset catalogues.
2. Consumer Prices Index snapshot 1988-2003 (CRDA/62/DS/2). This generally only goes back to 1996, although some earlier data going back to 1988 has been reconstructed from available data. See Links to dataset catalogues.
3. Historic Retail Prices Index 1947-2004 (CRDA/62/DS/3). This is an analysis of trends in inflation since 1947, as measured by the Retail Prices Index (RPI). It contains some data from 1914. See Links to dataset catalogues.

It is understood that ONS will make annual transfers of the Consumer and Retail Prices Index datasets. An archive will be prepared in mid-February, following the publication of the January index. This corresponds with the annual cycle of updating weightings.

NDAD received the collection of Historic RPI data in 2006.

The Consumer and Retail Prices Index datasets and their related documentation are public records under the Public Records Acts, 1958 and 1967. The National Archives has assigned the dataset the series reference RG 77.

The Consumer and Retail Prices Index datasets and their related documentation are open without restriction. The datasets and documentation are available on demand to users of NDAD, and do not require to be booked in advance.

The Consumer and Retail Prices Index datasets are subject to Crown Copyright. Copies may be made for private study and research purposes only.

None.

The language of the materials is English.

ONS publications relating to the Consumer and Retail Prices Index datasets have been transferred to NDAD. See the Dataset Documentation Catalogue for further details.

The UK Data Archive holds previously archived RPI and CPI data, as part of its economic releases and time services data, Study Number 4711. This data was archived directly from the ONS website. In 2003, responsibility for doing this passed to the Economic and Social Data Service (ESDS) at Manchester Information and Associated Services (MIMAS). ESDS have lately made the decision to discontinue much of the archiving.

Figures from the Indices are published by the Office for National Statistics on a monthly basis on their website in the periodical First Release and the accompanying Briefing Notes. Further details and analysis of results appear in ONS publications such as Focus on Consumer Price Indices, Economic Trends and Labour Market Trends.

Standard PCs.

Not known.

WinCSDB (a large Ingres database), and the ONS' central store of socio-economic time series. The WinCSDB was previously called the Central Shared Database. WinCSDB was used for the inputting and storage of the data in the department. Navidata 3.1 software was used to make the data available to online users though the ONS website.

The data was produced for general use by ONS staff using standard PCs. The data was made available to the public who could query the data online using the provided Navidata 3.1 software. The Historic RPI data was made available online to the public as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets.

Data for the CPI and RPI was originally made available by the Department in two electronic formats: an electronic publication (.pdf file), and the input file used to produce it. The publication contained only a snapshot of the column headings available in the input file. All of the data was available on the ONS website. From the ONS Time Series Data page, the public were able to download data in CSV format or query it using the Navidata 3.1 software provided by the ONS.

The data that was viewable via the Navidata software normally comprised 20 indices, which NDAD treated as tables of the dataset. Each index/table has several fields that are called 'series' in the Navidata software. Each of the 20 tables has a group of 'series' based on a four-character identifier, the CDID. For the two snapshot datasets currently available, (CRDA/61/DS/1 and CRDA/61/DS/2), only 19 of the 20 tables were accessioned. For further information, see Links to dataset catalogues.

The Historic RPI data was originally held on the website of the Office for National Statistics website (http://www.statistics.gov.uk/) in the form of eight Microsoft Excel files. The data was spread across several named worksheets within each spreadsheet. These were treated by NDAD as 42 separate tables. For further information, see Links to dataset catalogues.

Data for the Retail Prices Index was gathered by local and centralised price collection methods, using field operatives. The Consumer Prices Index contains the same price data, but with different scope and coverage. The Historic RPI data was mostly input manually from paper records, dating back to 1914 or earlier. For further information on how data was captured and validated, see the catalogues of individual datasets.

Details of the content and transformation validation checks performed by NDAD on the Consumer and Retail Prices Index datasets are recorded in the Dataset Catalogues: see Links to dataset catalogues.

Dataset catalogues provide more detailed information about individual datasets, and are currently available for the following dataset(s):