'Third Time Lucky? What we can learn from earlier attempts to measure more than GDP ' - An Administrative Data Research Centre Wales seminar with Paul Allin

In this seminar, Paul Allin will explore what can be learnt from earlier attempts to measure more than GDP.

About the event: There is increasing interest in measuring well-being and progress more widely than by the national economic accounts. The ONS’s Measuring National Well-being programme and developments by the Welsh Government are exemplars in going ‘beyond GDP’. However, the many current initiatives on this front, drawing on administrative and survey data, form the ‘second wave’ of attempts to usurp GDP, if we take the social indicators movement in the 1960s as the ‘first wave’. We add in Sir John Sinclair’s Statistical Account of Scotland from the 1790s to reinforce the point that measuring things differently is not enough: new measures will have to be used in government, business and everyday life.

About the speaker: Paul Allin is a visiting professor in the department of mathematics, Imperial College London, where he is researching and writing about the use of measures of national well-being - how a country is doing, in terms of economic performance, social progress, the environment and sustainability. With almost 40 years' experience working within the UK government statistical service, mainly in policy departments, Paul's career began in the national accounts area of the Central Statistical Office with his final post directing the Measuring National Well-being programme at the Office for National Statistics in Newport.

Registration open from 11:30-11:45

Event begins at 11:45

Lunch served at 13:00