New statistics for old? -measuring the wellbeing of the UK

Abstract

Attempts to create measures of national wellbeing and progress have a long history. In the UK, they go back at least as far as the 1790s, with Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland. More recently, worldwide interest has led to the creation of a number of indices seeking to go beyond familiar economic measures like GDP. We review the Measuring National Well-being development programme of the UK’s Office for National Statistics, and explore some of the challenges which need to be faced to bring wider measures into use. These include: the importance of getting the measures adopted as policy drivers; how to challenge the continuing dominance of economic measures; sustainability and environmental issues; international comparability; and methodological statistical questions.