Editorial: Measurement of Government output and productivity

摘要

At the end of January 2005, I published the final report of a review of the measurement of Government output and productivity in the UK, with particular reference to the national accounts (Atkinson, 2005). The review was carried out at the request of the then National Statistician, Len Cook, and the review team (led by Joe Grice and Aileen Simkins) was based in the Office for National Statistics (ONS), but the review was independent. The main conclusions of the yearlong review may be summarized as follows. (a) Public accountability requires measures of what is achieved by spending on public services. (b) In measuring national output, we cannot simply assume that outputs equal inputs in such a major part of the economy, which is a fifth of UK gross domestic product (GDP). (c) The ONS has taken the right route in introducing direct measures of Government output and is one of the world leaders, but the statistics on Government activity need to be developed further, in a principled framework.