It
is sometimes easy to forget that the Government is a major user of statistics,
though those who remember the Rayner dictum (that official statistics in those
days were primarily collected for Government) will need no reminder.� It was therefore an enlivening experience to hear a lucid and
succinct presentation from Christopher
Moir Director, Industry, Economics and Statistics, DTI, on the essence of
the DTI�s current understanding of research-based comparative data on UK
productivity compared to its equivalent for the US, France and Germany.�
Though measurement continues and demonstrates that there has been
improvement, we still lag and are baffled in trying to fully explain its causes.�
One important strand appears to lie in innovation; the UK is actually
quite good at finding innovative ideas but is far less successful in exploiting
them.� Additionally, the US�s lead
appears to be largely dependent on better total factor productivity ie not
labour or capital productivity separately but in combination.
The story was told and illustrated by a dozen or so telling charts. Productivity has five drivers: innovation, enterprise, skills, investment and competition.� The conclusions of the analysis were:
�Rapid productivity growth was vital to sustaining economic growth.� The UK�s productivity gap with other countries was a long-standing phenomenon, which could not be closed quickly.� The UK�s key weaknesses appeared to lie in investment, skills and parts of the innovation system.� Effective microeconomic policy works with the grain of the market.� There had been some progress but much remained to be done.� The charts may be viewed by downloading a PowerPoint file: BSUG.ppt (5mg) Compressed file (391kb).