The key government objective of improving UK productivity has resulted in a continuing demand for comprehensive data to better understand the underlying features of the UK productivity gap with other major industrial countries.
ONS has long recognised the need for timely, detailed productivity statistics. This was reflected in the first productivity strategy and work programme, published in Economic Trends in April 2002, which was carried out between 2002 and 2005.
A second strategy and associated work programme aims to build on the successes of the first and address the additional and changing requirements of users. This article summarises the previous work and background, explains the strategy and details the planned work projects.