The Wellbeing of Nations: Meaning, Motive and Measurement

7 Wellbeing policy and measurement in the UK

We must measure what matters – the key elements of national well-being.

Jil Matheson, UK National Statistician (2010)

There are developments in wellbeing policy and measurement in many countries, with the close involvement of international organisations such as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (the OECD) and the United Nations (see Appendix). We take the United Kingdom as a case study in this chapter, looking in particular at the Measuring National Well-being programme of the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics (ONS). This is because, from our close involvement with the programme, we think that there are a number of features that are worth highlighting and which should be applicable more widely.

The Measuring National Well-being programme (which we will call MNW) builds on 40 years of social reporting by the ONS, especially through an annual volume Social Trends, aiming to present a wider picture of life in the United Kingdom than that gleaned from looking only at economic statistics. In setting up MNW, the ONS was able to draw on trail-blazing work, including through building a close working relationship with the Centre for Wellbeing at the New Economics Foundation. The centre had been established some 10 years ahead of the ONS programme and had consistently sought to understand, measure and influence wellbeing, both directly and by alerting policy makers to the issue.

ONS became increasingly aware ...