The Prime Minister has announced that the Office for National Statistics will lead a debate called the National Wellbeing Project. ONS has now launched a programme of work to develop broader measures of national well-being to complement GDP, and to ensure that this is relevant to policy development, decision making and in assessing the performance of government. The national debate runs from now until 15 April. A consultation document is open for responses, and details of events around the country will be announced. The first official measure of the nation’s well-being will be published in summer 2012.

We understand that high level discussions on this subject are also taking place in Scotland, which we hope to hear more from later. In the meantime Oxfam Scotland is about to launch a project to construct a Humankind Index to assess Scotland’s prosperity in terms of resilience, assets and sustainability as well as the economy. Their proposal is said to be “unique in that public participation in constructing the index will be central to the process”. Tendering for an organisation or consortium of organisations to deliver the consultation recently closed.