The Blackett Memorial Lecture: 30th November 1999 - The future for official statistics

Official Statistics are at the heart of all public policy. They are involve d in a range of uses including policy development and monitoring, and admin istrative uses including resource allocation. The range of uses is growing rapidly. This paper contains a description of these uses, both in the Unite d Kingdom context and within the European Union. It is argued that for Offi cial Statistics to have the full impact on society that they ought, they ne ed to have three attributes. They must be of high quality and fit for the p urposes intended; they must command public confidence in the way that they are compiled and disseminated and they must be relevant and responsive to t he needs to which they are used by decision makers.