The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated April 2008:"As National Statistician I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking what assessment has been made of the reliability of the short-term migration statistical series. (199856)""Short-term migration estimates were published for the first time in October 2007, together with associated standard errors which provide an indication of how much a sample estimate might vary from the true value because of random effects.""The estimates are not yet classified as National Statistics as they are still under development. At the time of publishing, ONS set out the future pathway to achieving the higher quality standards of National Statistics status. The first stage of this work is to carry out a reconciliation exercise between combined estimates of long and short-term migration and counts of international immigrants from administrative sources. Publication of this first step is planned for May 2008."