Posts by Rob Kent-Smith

Transforming GDP: Economic statistics for a digital age   

Categories: Business, Data, Economy, Office for National Statistics, ONS

ONS has radical plans to fundamentally update and enhance the way it calculates many of the UK’s key economic statistics. More detailed information about the dominant services sector and more data on smaller firms add up to the biggest overhaul of GDP in a generation, as Rob Kent-Smith reveals.     

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Getting the balance right – how ONS creates a single estimate of GDP

Categories: Economy, ONS

After 70 years of production Gross Domestic Product (GDP) remains the single most closely watched economic indicator. The success  of government economic policy is judged against it and it’s the yardstick for the scale of public spending and debt.  As Rob Kent-Smith explains, calculating GDP requires the informed balancing of sometimes contradictory data sources.     

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