CONTRACT FOR THE PROVISION OF CONSUMER PRICES INDEX (CPI) AND RETAIL PRICES INDEX (RPI) LOCAL PRICE COLLECTION AND ASSOCIATED STATISTICAL SERVICES

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) produces a wide range of key economic/social statistics. The Consumer Prices Indices (CPI and CPIH) and the Retail Price Index (RPI) figures are one of the most important (and most public) statistics that the ONS produces. They are one of the key economic indicators used by HM Treasury, the Monetary Policy Committee, and across Government and the private sector for decision making. The contract involves the collection of nationally representative price data from retail outlets for the UK's monthly inflation indicators, the CPI and the RPI. The services to be provided include:

• (i)item selection: the participation, with ONS staff, in the periodic review and selection of items for a basket of goods and services and of a subset of those items for which the service provider will collect prices;

• (ii)sourcing of products and outlets: finding products that comply with the item specifications, and outlets in which to price those products;

• (iii)location enumeration; the enumeration of, and supply of information on, locations where this is needed for outlet selection;

• (iv)collection of prices: the collection of representative price data and descriptions of the products being priced for the subset of items for which the service provider will collect prices;

• (v)data cleaning: the checking of the data for quality;

• (vi)data delivery: the delivery of the data to ONS; and

• (vii)associated services: including but not limited to market information on prices, retailers, goods and services; and the twice yearly collection of price data (in London) for the Purchasing Power Parities surveys.