This session will bring together the range of UK ‘Beyond GDP’ metrics already available and under development, and discuss how these can be used to tell the story of UK progress. We will also consider what has been heard in previous events.

We will consider how we trade-off the benefits of multi-indicator frameworks that show progress across a range of different indicators, with the idea of indices that try to communicate complex change with a single number. We will also examine how we best meet users’ needs, including the balance between granular estimates at local levels, timeliness of estimates at a national level and ensuring robustness; how we ensure people can see themselves in this, and how we account for the environment.

The full agenda and registration link is available here.

The ONS is hosting this events series with the Royal Statistical Society, to discuss and hear views on a range of work underway on metrics which can be used to measure what matters to those in the UK. This is important if we are to take a holistic view on how we’re doing as an economy, environmentally and as a society. GDP was once, perhaps, a proxy indicator for progress in society. Challenges such as those around the environment and climate change, and alongside increasing digitisation, affect the economy, human and planetary health and well-being. So usable measures to complement GDP are needed now more than ever.