Public sector or private sector: How the ONS decides â and why it matters Part of the role of the Office for National Statistics is to assess whether various organisations should be considered part of the public or private sector for statistical purposes. These important decisions affect how many people appear in public sector employment figures, for example, as well as how much debt is counted as on the governmentâs books. But when would an organisation be classified to the public sector? In today's blog Ryan Oliver explains how the ONS makes its decisions. | 