National Statistical

This month UN secretary general António Guterres called on the international community to “go beyond gross domestic product as a measure of human progress and wellbeing.” In fact for some years now, the ONS has been going far beyond traditional measures of the economy – including GDP – by introducing statistics which seek to measure national well-being. Today we are introducing a new, streamlined framework for reporting these metrics. Here Richard Heys sets out this new approach. 

Since 2011, the UK Measures of National Well‑being (UKMNW) framework has provided a holistic view of how we are doing as individuals, communities and as a nation and how sustainable that is for the future. In 2023, following an extensive review, the framework expanded from 44 to 60 measures and was supported by a re-designed interactive dashboard, published on our website. 

However, the breadth of the framework means measures are drawn from a wide range of sources with differing update frequencies. The previous model of attempting quarterly updates across dozens of measures was challenging. It placed considerable pressure on analytical resources and constrained our ability to produce coherent insights on quality of life in the UK. More importantly, it provided data that was incredibly hard to interpret: if at any point in time we could only update 30 of the 60 indicators, even if that 30 gave a consistent message, it was impossible to predict whether, when data for that same time period for the other 30 measures did come available, that these slower metrics would tell the same message.

Ultimately while the 60-measure dashboard allowed us to see the latest available data, this inability to turn the data into a timely narrative presented a clear quality / quantity conflict. 

To resolve this, we have made two material changes to how we present this data that we hope will make the narrative clearer for users and should make each of our two new products easier to use.  

Firstly, as part of the organisation‑wide shift to streamline outputs and refocus on the quality of our most critical outputs, we will now only update the full 60‑measure UKMNW dashboard annually each May from this year. This means that when users go to the dashboard the latest update will be comprehensive making it easier to interpret the detailed metrics and the underlying story emerging from these. 

Secondly, to ensure users continue to receive timely insight and reflecting the commitments we made following the review, we are launching a shorter set of metrics, each of which can be updated on a quarterly basis, with a short time lag, to give the most accurate set of leading indicators we can of the main drivers of well-being in the UK.  

This set of seven Headline National Well‑being Measures will include the following metrics:  

• life satisfaction representing personal well-being 

• trust in others representing social capital 

• self-reported health status representing health 

• young people not in education, employment or training (NEET) representing education and opportunity 

• gross domestic product (GDP) per head representing material well-being 

• trust in government representing governance, and  

• greenhouse gas emissions per head as an environment-related measure in the short-term as we identify a metric we can use in the long-term. 

These measures are informed by the seven domains recommended by the UN High‑Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP in their interim report published in November 2024. They are not designed to capture their domains in full, but to serve as proxies or leading signals of change, complementing the more comprehensive annual dashboard. 

The new approach to national well‑being reporting strengthens our ability to deliver statistics that are timely, trusted, and meaningful. Quarterly headline measures offer a clear and accessible snapshot of national trends which accurately capture quarterly changes means users can discern a far clearer narrative while the annual UKMNW dashboard will continue to provide the most detailed overview and authoritative annual statement of well‑being in the UK. 

You can read our first Headline Measures bulletin here: Measuring progress, well-being and beyond GDP in the UK – Office for National Statistics 

For more detail on the framework and the measure selection criteria, please see the UKMNW User Guide.