ONS criticises hit TV series Industry over characters impersonating staff | BBC
It’s known for depicting city traders as drug-addled, sex-crazed adrenaline junkies, but it’s the portrayal of data collectors on the doorstep that has proved unexpectedly problematic for the BBC’s hit TV series Industry.
The head of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has written to the BBC criticizing Industry for an episode in which industry characters mistakenly impersonate ONS workers on someone’s doorstep.
Darren Tierney, permanent secretary of Britain’s statistics agency ONS, said such a depiction risked undermining the “delicate relationship” field interviewers have with the public. This has been particularly challenged since the Covid outbreak, as people became more concerned about scammers and the sharing of personal data.
The ONS sends field interviewers to thousands of homes across the UK every month to help collect data that feeds into its official statistics, such as employment figures and consumer spending.
“They do this with dedication, professionalism and often under challenging conditions. Their ability to do this job safely depends on a foundation of trust,” Tierney said. he wrote in his letter To Tim Davie, the BBC’s outgoing director general.
Tierney said staff had “expressed regret” that this trust may have been “inadvertently compromised” by the BBC. section.
However, so far it appears that no public has specifically mentioned the Industrial incident to the statistical agency.
The Industry series, produced by HBO and broadcast on BBC, is about the lives of a group of young investment bankers in London who are competing to rise in their sector. Over four series launched in late 2020 and have become a huge hit in the UK and US.
The incident that took place in the third episode of the last 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 a company defraud its investors and customers.
The ONS said interviewers sent a letter before any home visit and carried a photo ID card with an “authorisation number” which could be checked on the ONS helpline.
Tierney invited Davie and the BBC to meet their interviewers and look at the “hard and vital work they do”.
Fashion choices within the industry have also been attacked. In a blog post accompanying Tierney’s letter, ONS said While field agents are allowed to choose their work attire, they are “unlikely to show up at your door posing as flight attendants, as imposters do in Industry”.
The letter comes as the ONS faces scrutiny over the quality of its statistics following problems with the accuracy of data including employment, GDP and inflation figures, with experts previously saying policymakers were “flying blind”.
The “deep-seated” problems were caused in part by over-exhaustion of resources and sharp declines in survey responses.
Some City economists expressed surprise at the ONS’s attack on Industry, arguing that the show did not portray anyone in a particularly good light.
Simon French, chief economist at investment bank Panmure Liberum, said: “If that’s Darren’s real problem with Industry, focuses on the wrong parts… Can I write a letter saying council staff are worried the BBC is portraying us all as sex-crazed, drug-dealing sociopaths?”
