A recent report by the New Economics Foundation calls on the Office for National Statistics to adopt new headline measures of national success in the UK. The report highlights how the single measure of GDP has come to be treated as shorthand for overall success, creating a strong incentive for policy-makers to pursue short-term economic growth over and above all other goals. Drawing from the latest international research on indicator design, and consultation with experts and organisations across the UK, the report identifies the following five headline measures: Good jobs, Wellbeing, Environment, Fairness and Health. The report argues that consideration of these indicators will usher in a new, more rounded, smarter approach to policy-making – one which moves beyond a short-term obsession with narrow economic measures and our current, flawed conception of national success.
Download the PDF of the full report (1.73mb)