Government withdraws property data

By Matt Falloon

LONDON (Reuters) - The government shelved its home sales statistics on Thursday, adding to concerns over the quality of official data which help inform interest rate policy at a time when the economy is teetering on the edge of recession.

City economists and even the Bank of England have been questioning the reliability of several official date series including trade, growth and retail sales.

The withdrawal comes just two weeks after the Ministry of Justice delayed for a week, without explanation, the release of figures on home repossessions.

Latest property transactions data was due to be published by Revenue and Customs on Thursday but was postponed until September because of anomalies.

Revenue and Customs said an updated series of property transactions -- which recorded a series low at the last outing -- would appear on September 21.

"Outputs obtained whilst updating the monthly series contained some significant and unexplained differences with the statistics published last month," it said on its Web site.

"All months in the statistical series are affected, with the differences showing falls in some months and increases in others. We are working to understand the reason for these differences so that a reliable set of statistics can be produced."

"UNFORECASTABLE"