Measuring Public Sector Output and Productivity in the UK – Progress since The Atkinson Review

1. UK Centre for the Measurement of Government Activity Measuring Public Sector Output and Productivity in the UK – Progress since The Atkinson Review Mark Pont Deputy Director, UKCeMGA

2. Overview • Background • The Atkinson Review • Achievements • Consultation • Strategy • Future plans

3. Background • Old approach: ‘inputs = outputs’ • Government spending is one-fifth of GDP in the UK • European requirement from mid-1990s to measure output directly • Atkinson Review “Measurement of Government Output and Productivity for the National Accounts” published in Jan 2005 • UKCeMGA set up July 2005

4. Scope of the work • Measurement of government output and productivity: • Health and adult social care • Education and children’s social services • Social security administration • Criminal Justice System • Civil and Family Courts • Fire • (Defence) • Provision of data series to National Accounts • Publication of Productivity Articles • Development of new methods and international liaison

5. Achievements 1 • Establishment of Advisory Board • Publication of productivity articles • Improvements to expenditure data • New financial reporting database • Classification of activity to COFOG • Clear analysis of adjustments made to data • Financial Director sign-off of input data • Procurement data • More timely data from local government

6. Achievements 2 • Education • More complete and accurate measure of output • Initial development of improved quality measures • Health • More activities covered • Better measure of GP time • Triangulation • Use of independent corroborative evidence • Quality Measurement Framework Project

7. Quality Measurement Framework Project • £2.5m (€3.7m) project funded by HM Treasury • Aims to create mechanisms for measuring the quality of outputs • Develop methods to measure Care Homes’ output • Weights for different social care outcomes • Link between performance measures and quality • Investigate the potential in other areas: • Pre-school education • Low-level social care interventions • Information and advice services for adult social care • Extend to other government services

8. Consultation • Three consultations • Establishing the Principles • Education • Health • Consultation paper • Seminars • Strategy, to be published soon

9. Strategy • Quality measurement • Dimensions of quality • Contribution of output to outcome • Capacity for benefit • Methodological issues • Relative importance of the dimensions of quality • Cost or value weights • Time lags

10. Future plans 1 • Satellite accounts • Bring together a wider picture of the output of the public sector • Categorise economic activities by nature and purpose • Better understand links between inputs and outputs • Understand links and time lags between economic activities and outcomes • More improvements to input data • Quality assurance of input data • Improvements to delivery of local government data

11. Future plans 2 • More methodological work • Measuring quality of public service delivery • Attribution • Measure the quality of our own outputs • Ongoing reviews of methods used • Documentation • Operate transparently • Helps us establish framework for improvement

12. UKCeMGA Contacts • Head of division: • Aileen Simkins, aileen.simkins@ons.gov.uk • Deputy head of division: • Mark Pont, mark.pont@ons.gov.uk • Head of Education team: • Helen Patterson, helen.patterson@ons.gov.uk • Head of Health team: • Phillip Lee, phillip.lee@ons.gov.uk • Head of Methods team: • Emily Carless, emily.carless@ons.gov.uk • Our website: www.statistics.gov.uk/ukcemga