National Statistician

www.ons.gov.uk/well-being

Jil Matheson

Measures of Progress: UK Perspective

• Measuring National Well-being.

• Sustainable Development Indicators.

• Plethora of national and international examples of measuring progress to learn from.

• Align approaches in a consistent conceptual framework.

• Can we join up?

Measures of National Well-being (1)

Measures of National Well-being (2)

Proposed Sustainable Development Headline Indicators

Economy Society Environment

Economic prosperity Healthy life expectancy Greenhouse gas emissions

Long term unemployment

Social Capital Natural resource use

Poverty Social mobility in adulthood

Wildlife and biodiversity

Knowledge and skills Housing provision Water availability

Measures of Progress: Further Developments

Environmental Accounts•Interaction between the economy and environment.

• EU regulations.

Experimental Ecosystems Accounts• Published a roadmap of development to 2020.• Development of Ecosystem accounts such as soil,

fisheries, forests, etc (ONS & DEFRA).• Challenging experimental area.• Challenges in attempting to value natural capital.

Lessons Learnt from UK Experience• Consultation and Engagement.

• Multi-dimensional concept - dashboard of indicators rather than single index.

• 3 Pillars - Economy, Social and Environmental.

• Subjective and objective measures needed.

• Current/future well-being should be reflected (capital stocks and flows are important).

• Distributions as well as averages.

UK Response to Rio+20

• Align developments in measuring well-being, progress, SDGs and MDGs agendas

• Join up initiatives (UN/OECD/EU Commission/ILO/National Statistics Institutes).

• Draw on a consistent conceptual framework.