Peter Smith
By the data from Truflation, the UK Consumer Price Index is 1.74% when people compare prices now to prices from one year ago. In this measurement, prices are based on transactions that happen in real time. It is possible that prices are increasing at a slower rate than the rates that official reports show.
As the data from February showed, the Truflation index moved between 2.36% and 2.94% over the year - but the Office for National Statistics reported a number that is 3.2% for that time. Due to those numbers, there is a difference between how people track prices as they change and how individuals use traditional methods to gather statistics.
To understand the situation, people are looking at the report that the Office for National Statistics will release tomorrow. On this day the office will provide CPI besides CPIH data for March 2026. For this update the report will include Grocery Scanner data. And this data is intended to show the prices that people pay in stores instead of using information that comes from surveys.
If the office includes prices from scanners, the official index might be similar to measures like Truflation. With this change the difference between the two sets of data is likely to be smaller.
Peter Smith
