Head of statistics complains to BBC about cast impersonation in hit drama Industry | BBC

This series was known for its portrayal of City dealers as drug addicts and sex-crazed adrenaline junkies. industry It unexpectedly attracted criticism for its depiction of data collectors on the doorstep.

The head of the Office for National Statistics has written to the BBC criticizing a recent episode in which ONS staff were falsely impersonated on someone’s doorstep.

Darren Tierney, permanent secretary of the Office for National Statistics, the UK’s statistics agency, warned that the story risked undermining the “delicate relationship” between field interviewers and the public – a relationship already under strain since the Covid pandemic heightened concerns about fraud and the sharing of personal data.

Every month, the ONS sends interviews to thousands of households across the UK to help collect information used in official statistics, such as employment and spending data.

“They do this with dedication and professionalism, often under difficult circumstances,” Tierney wrote in his letter to Tim Davie, the BBC’s outgoing director-general, “and their ability to do this work safely rests on a foundation of trust.”

He added that staff had “expressed their dissatisfaction” that this trust may have been “unintentionally compromised” by the BBC. episode.

However, it is understood that no member of the public has yet mentioned the industry incident specifically to the Statistics Authority.

The television series Industry, produced by HBO and broadcast on the BBC, follows the lives of a group of young investment bankers in London as they compete to rise through the ranks of their industry. Over four series, starting in late 2020, it became a hit in the UK and US.

The incident that appears in the third episode of the final series, It shows characters Sweetpea Golightly and Harper Stern impersonating ONS field agents in Sunderland to gain access to the home of someone they believe is unwittingly helping the company defraud investors and customers.

The ONS said interviewers send a letter before any home visit and carry photo ID with an “authority number” that can be verified through the ONS helpline.

Tierney invited Davie and the BBC to meet the interviewers and look at the “vital and challenging work they do”.

The industry’s fashion choices have also come under attack. In a blog post accompanying Tierney’s letter, the ONS said that although it allows its field agents to choose their work attire, they are “unlikely to show up on your doorstep, as scammers do in the industry, looking like flight attendants.”

The letter comes as the ONS faces scrutiny over the quality of its statistics, after problems with the accuracy of data including employment, GDP and inflation figures, which experts previously said left policymakers “flying blind”.

The “profound” problems were caused in part by excessive resources, as well as sharp declines in survey responses.

Some City economists expressed surprise at the ONS’s attack on the industry, arguing that the show did not portray anyone in a particularly good light.

“If this is Darren’s main problem with the industry,” said Simon French, chief economist at investment bank Panmure Librom., “He was focusing on the wrong parts… Can I write a letter saying that people in the City are concerned that the BBC portrays us all as sociopaths, sex freaks and drug pushers?”

The BBC declined to comment.