Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) - AWARD

Provision of an Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the United Kingdom's National Statistics Institute with responsibility for the delivery of a variety of vital statistical outputs, including the UK's headline economic statistics. To help it achieve this remit ONS will establish a dedicated research centre of excellence in relation to economic statistics for the analysis of emerging and future issues in measuring the modern economy through improved access to economic expertise.

It is envisaged that the Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) will offer the capacity for fundamental methodological and conceptual work, for example on how best to address the challenge of measuring new forms of economic activity in a globalised world, meeting the needs for local, city and regional statistics, and understanding the productivity puzzle, as well as forming a platform for constructive discussion and dialogue around official statistics. The objective of the ESCoE is to feed into the development and improvement of ONS economic statistics and data processing methodologies.

ONS will interact with the ESCoE to enable it to deliver successfully against our objectives. The ESCoE will be a very significant investment for ONS and we need to ensure value for money and cost-effectiveness in terms of ESCoE becoming a key and integral enabler of future transformation of economic statistics in the UK.