Image: NEF / Dan Farley
With their latest report “Five headline indicators of national success – a clearer picture of how the UK is performing”, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) has launched a campaign to end “short-term obsession with narrow economic measures and … flawed conception(s) of national success” in UK policy-making processes. With their five new indicators they propose to enrich the information available for citizens and democratic debate, reflecting public priorities better than our exclusive attention to GDP, and very clearly addressing sustainable development.
Drawing from the “latest international research on indicator design, and consultation with experts and organisations across the UK”, these are the five headline measures identified by NEF:
- Good jobs: everyone should be able to find secure, stable employment that pays at least enough to provide a decent standard of living.
- Wellbeing: improving people’s lives should be the ultimate aim of public policy, measured at headline level as average reported life satisfaction.
- Environment: our prosperity and that of future generations depends on a healthy environment. UK carbon emissions must not exceed the set limit if we want to avoid dangerous climate change.
- Fairness: high levels of inequality, evidenced by a growing gap between the incomes of the top and bottom 10% of households, have been proven to have corrosive effects on both society and economy.
- Health: good quality healthcare and public health provision, measured by a reduced percentage of deaths considered avoidable, is a pre-requisite for all other social and economic goals.
NEF acknowledges that such diverse policy goals already exist across individual government departments, “but given the dominant role of the Treasury in British political life, its primary policy objective – increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – has become shorthand for national success… Better headline indicators are essential for better policymaking”, the authors Karen Jeffrey and Juliet Michaelson argue, “by using them to guide policy decisions, rather than assuming economic growth will automatically translate into other benefits, we can build an economy better suited to the needs of the individuals, communities and businesses it serves.”
The New Economics Foundation aims to inspire a real change of approach in policy-making and is calling on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) “to adopt and refine these new headline indicators, and giving them highest priority in their schedule of regular data releases.” Readers are invited to support this shift by signing up here.
Related Links
- The full report can be downloaded as PDF (1.7MB) here.
- Sign-up to the indicators to show your support.
