What we do (overview)
Outputs and Activities
The ONS is responsible for the production of a wide range of economic and social statistics, in both electronic and hardcopy format. ONS's flagship products cover such topics as
- the UK's National Accounts (such as Gross Domestic Product, National Income and Expenditure)
- the UK Balance of Payments
- population, demography and migration
- government output and activity
- business output and activity
- prices (such as consumer and producer)
- the labour market (such as employment, unemployment and earnings)
- vital events (such as births, marriages, morbidity and deaths)
- social statistics (for example statistics about neighbourhoods and families)
The ONS also works with the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to carry out the decennial Census of Population - next due in 2011.
As well as delivering many of the UK's key economic and social statistics, the ONS also undertakes a range of corporate activities on behalf of the National Statistician, acting in her capacity as the National Statistician and Head of the GSS. For example, the ONS:
- administers the governance arrangement for the GSS
- sets statistical policy and professional standards, and monitors their implementation across the GSS
- co-ordinates statistical production across the UK system
- represents the UK within the European Statistical System (ESS)
Reporting/Accountability
The ONS's work programme is set out in the ONS Corporate Business Plan. Progress against that plan, along with other information, is presented monthly to the ONS's Executive Management Group as a Corporate Governance Report and is summarised in the ONS Annual Report and Accounts. In addition, on behalf of contributing departments across the rest of the GSS, the ONS publishes a three-yearly National Statistics Work Programme and reviews progress against that programme in the National Statistics Annual Report.
