This year's Blue Book includes large scale changes to the sector and financial accounts including the separation of household and non-profit institutions serving households sectors. Due to the amount of work involved the decision has been taken to delay the publication of historic sector and financial accounts data prior to 1997 while we complete final quality assurance of this part of the dataset. We appreciate user interest in these historic data and plan to publish them as soon as possible and no later than 31 October 2017.

GDP series and the current account balance are not affected and will be published from 1948 annually and 1955 quarterly as planned. We apologise for any inconvenience.

Data

The United Kingdom Statistics Authority has designated these statistics as National Statistics, in accordance with the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 and signifying compliance with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.

Designation can be broadly interpreted to mean that the statistics:

  • meet identified user needs
  • are well explained and readily accessible
  • are produced according to sound methods
  • are managed impartially and objectively in the public interest

Once statistics have been designated as National Statistics it is a statutory requirement that the Code of Practice shall continue to be observed.