Recession: another statistical health warning

Today's news that the economy grew again in the last three months of 2009 will actually come as a bit of a disappointment.
The UK hasn't so much climbed out of recession as crawled, managing a 0.1% rise in output between the start of October and the end of December.
That's not only weaker than expected (the forecast had been for 0.4%) but also likely to be influenced by temporary factors like Christmas spending, the car scrappage scheme, lower VAT.
All these measures will disappear, and the worry is that with them gone the next set of figures could see growth halt again.
However...I'd attached a very big health warning to today's figures because they are NOT the full picture.
The analysis released today by the Office of National Statistics is based on only 40% of the data used to produce a figure - so it's only a first impression.
History tells us that the ONS often has to revise its figures (it will do so in February) and that in the recent past those revisions have been up.
So there'as a chance things are better than we think.
However, take on board the verdict today of George Cowcher, the chief executive of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce: "While the region is on the brink of leaving recession, it is not there yet."