Public Policy

What is the meaning of life?  Measuring National well-being in the UK

Categories: Data, Economy, Health, Public Policy, Wellbeing
A group of people looking happy, they have their arms around each other and are in a park type setting with sunlight behind them

This week, ONS has published a range of data on what people tell us matters most to them when it comes to living a good and meaningful life.  Here Tim Vizard looks at what we’ve discovered, why it is important and our plans to continue exploring beyond purely economic measures to get a fuller picture of how our society is doing.

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Down your way: working towards more localised data on public sector spending

Categories: Economy, ONS, Public Policy

Since we introduced the country and regional public sector finances data in 2017, further opportunities have emerged to use alternative data sources to make these statistics more timely. Moreover, data sources and production techniques can help increase the granularity of geographical breakdowns. In this post we look at some improvements we’re working on.

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Local Data for Local People: How new data sources are helping to calibrate communities

Categories: Data, Economy, ONS, ONS Local, Public Policy

In this episode of Statistically Speaking we shine the spotlight on local data and look at how good statistics for small areas make for better targeted policy interventions, and more effective use of valuable public resources. 

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Disability: When the numbers alone are simply not enough 

Categories: Census, Disability, Health, Public Policy, Wellbeing

The most recent estimates suggest one in five people in the UK are disabled. But to really understand the nature of those disabilities and the needs of people reporting them we need to do a lot more work.   

In this episode of Statistically Speaking we look at what’s being done to gain insight into the lives of disabled children and adults and provide high quality qualitative data that reflects the day-to-day lives of all people in our society.  

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