ONS

What’s in a name? There’s more than you might think to the ONS baby names list

Categories: ONS
Baby smiling at camera

The annual release of baby names by the ONS may not be the most significant event in the statistical calendar. Yet it remains one of the most popular pages on the ONS website and a firm favourite with the news media. Here Nick Stripe argues in defence of baby names lists. Far from being inconsequential, he argues, the annual changes hint reliably at the social and cultural changes underway in our population.

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Providing the best picture of international migration

Categories: ONS, Population

The latest ONS figures show that migration continues to add to the UK population but there are different trends for EU and non-EU migrants. EU migration has been falling since 2016, while non-EU migration has now stabilised following gradual increases since 2013. Here Jay Lindop puts the latest figures into the context of on-going work to better understand the complexities around international migration.

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Understanding the contribution of migrants to the UK’s tourism and health sectors

Categories: ONS, Population

Fresh analysis by the Office for National Statistics shows that these two key sectors employ around three-quarters of a million non-British workers, with the majority of those coming from the European Union.  Providing a better understanding of the migrant workforce is one of the ways we’re mobilising the power of data to help Britain make better decisions.  Here Jay Lindop discusses this latest work and the ongoing transformation of UK population and migration statistics. 

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Missing capitals – How ONS measures the value of our environment

Categories: Data, ONS, Public Policy

Traditional methods of measuring the economy tend to exclude the value of some of our most important assets. At the Office for National Statistics we have been working to develop measures of these so-called ‘missing capitals’. Top of that list is the thing that sustains all activity on our planet; the natural environment. Dr Adam Dutton explains how the ONS is part of a growing international movement that is seeking to find the economic value of our “Natural Capital”.

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The hardest part of productivity measurement

Categories: Economy, ONS, Public Policy

Productivity has been a topic of great interest in recent years, especially because of the well-known ‘productivity puzzle’ – the historically weak productivity growth in the UK since the economic downturn in 2008.

But if that is a puzzle, here is another one – how do you measure the productivity of public services, like education or healthcare, when they are provided for free? Since 2005, ONS has developed suitable measures for over half of public services, but there is still much to do. In this blog Josh Martin explains how the ONS measures the productivity of public services.

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