Consumer price inflation basket of goods and services

Changes to the baskets of goods and services are being introduced with the February 2023 consumer price statistics published on 22 March 2023.

Several new items have been introduced to represent specific markets where consumer spending is significant or growing and existing items may not adequately represent price changes. For example, infants' dresses and e-bikes have been added. Previously, there has been no representative dress item for younger children despite the popularity of this clothing type, and electric bikes have been gaining in popularity, potentially for environmental and fitness reasons. Frozen berries have been included to represent frozen fruit; this is the first time this category has been covered in the baskets.

Some new items have been introduced to diversify the range of products collected for already established groupings. For example, green beans have been introduced to expand the representation of vegetables.

Computer game accessories were previously included as part of a computer game and accessory package, which was removed in 2013. We are now introducing a separate computer game accessory item with the aim of collecting more prices, spreading the weight of existing gaming items across a wider range of products, and improving the reliability of the overall series.

An existing margarine and low-fat spread item has been split into two for similar reasons; namely, increasing coverage, reducing volatility in the series, and aiding interpretation of the figures. The two new items are dairy spread or margarine and dairy-free spread or margarine. The dairy-free item further expands the range of "free from" products, reflecting the growth in veganism.

As in most years, developments in technology influence the update and for 2023, a security or surveillance camera has been added. This item aims to capture the wide range of video doorbells and security cameras available while ensuring the basket is up to date with the latest smart technology, which is a feature of this product's popularity among consumers.

Analysis of the broad balance of representative items across the Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers' housing costs (CPIH) highlighted a need to improve coverage across a range of categories including bread and cereals, clothing accessories, and audio-visual equipment. We have added tortillas or wraps, a man's belt, and a soundbar to help improve overall estimates of price change in these categories.

In other cases, new items are direct replacements for the same or similar products. For example, there is already a rail fares item in the baskets, but this will be replaced by six more detailed series in the first change to be introduced as part of our transformation of consumer price statistics. The new series will be based on transaction data and will use over 30 million price points in calculating the index each month, which will improve our coverage and increase the granularity of the data, offering additional insights into the components driving rail fare inflation in the UK.

A final type of addition is where price collection difficulties suggest a change would improve the coverage and quality of price series in specific areas of the baskets. This year, we are adding a new apples item, which will enable us to collect the price of individual apples to supplement the existing apples item, which collects prices per kilogram.  Coverage of the existing item has been falling because of the tendency of small format supermarkets to sell items of fruit individually as they cater more for the lunchtime food trade.

In addition to reviewing the specific items, the annual update considers the types of shops or places where prices are collected. Pineapples and melons are existing items but were previously only collected in supermarkets. However, the wider availability of both products means we can increase our coverage by pricing them in other outlets selling fruit. Conversely, a pre-recorded DVD film, top 40 CD and top 20 Blu-ray disc have been removed from the collection in some supermarkets because of reduced availability.

It is important that growth in the overall size of the baskets is limited each year so that production costs and processing times may be contained. Several items therefore have been removed in 2023.

In some cases, this reflects low or decreasing expenditure and falls in stock levels for pricing. For example, there is a narrower range of digital compact cameras available for pricing, following a decline in consumer spending, because of the increased usage and quality of smartphone cameras. Equally, non-chart CDs and non-film DVDs have been dropped from the price collection in shops (but not from the internet). The number of quotes collected has fallen as some retailers have stopped selling these items, reflecting the rise of streaming.

In other cases, removal does not necessarily imply that the markets for these goods and services are very small or declining significantly. Some items have been removed to make way for new additions to the baskets within the same grouping. For example, the postage charges item is being replaced by new items for letter and parcel handling services. The aim is to enable us to capture price quotes from a wider range of parcel courier services and to produce a more detailed analysis. Another example is tampons, which have been replaced by sanitary towels. These attract greater expenditure and are currently more representative of feminine hygiene products.

Elsewhere, analysis suggested that there was scope to remove items from certain groupings without any significant loss of precision in estimates of overall price change. This year, the spirit-based drink or alcopop item has been removed from the restaurants and cafes category, one of the cigarette brands has been removed from tobacco, and the two red wine items for European and New World wines merged into one within off-sales of alcohol.

Finally, collection issues can influence changes and, as such, a home-killed lamb shoulder has been dropped. The item was amended two years ago to allow collectors to price the item with or without a bone, but this had little impact on the numbers of quotes they were able to obtain, and we have now removed the item. Lamb remains represented in the basket by lamb chops and steaks.