Total public service output, inputs and productivity

SummaryIn 2008, public services accounted for approximately 22 per cent of the expenditure measure of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the UK. Given the Government's announced intention to cut government spending and given that almost everyone is a potential user of public services such as the NHS or schools there is a particular concern about ‘what we are getting for our money’. One important aspect of this, though not the only aspect, is productivity: the quantity of output that is produced divided by the quantity of input used. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has published periodic assessments of the productivity performance of key public services. This article updates the experimental estimates for all public services which were produced last year (Phelps 2009).