Official Statistics on Personal Well-Being: Some Reflections on the Development and Use of Subjective Well-Being Measures in the UK

This paper draws on experience of the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) programme to measure national well-being, particularly the high-profile element of the programme in which subjective well-being measures have been collected and published since April 2011. We reflect on drivers of the ONS work and on how these have given rise to interest both in national well-being – the Beyond GDP agenda – and in the use of subjective well-being measures (self-reported, personal well-being) in public policy. Although we touch briefly on measurement and analysis issues, we mainly concentrate on user requirements, the international context, and political, policy, public and business use of well-being data.