Investing in research and development (R&D) is one of the key ways that businesses can improve their competitiveness and increase their productivity, an important driver of growth. Here, Office for National Statistics’s (ONS) Deputy National Statistician for Economic Statistics Jonathan Athow looks at the importance of R&D and how the ONS goes about capturing it in its figures, which it publishes in its Gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) release.
The recent Population and Public Policy Forum on Housing focused on the private rental sector and showed how ONS has been working with experts to identify evidence gaps and find ways to fill them. Joe Lane, Principal Policy Manager from Citizens Advice, talks about the problems facing the sector.